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PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION 



L ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS 
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION INC. 
r. j. cuddihy 
Arthur W. Page 
Mark Sullivan 
E. A. Van Valkenburg 



1^ ^ 







THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

On the round-up, 1885 



ROOSEVELT 
IN THE BAD LANDS 

BY 
HERMANN HAGEDORN 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
1921 



• H W^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY HERMANN HAGEDORN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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*vv>o I 



TO 

WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON 

CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY 
AND DREAMER OF DREAMS 



It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West, the 
West of Owen Wister's stories and Frederic Remington's 
drawings, the West of the Indian and the buffalo-hunter, the 
soldier and the cow-puncher. That land of the West has gone 
now, "gone, gone with lost Atlantis," gone to the isle of ghosts 
and of strange dead memories. It was a land of vast silent 
spaces, of lonely rivers, and of plains where the wild game 
stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered 
ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and of reckless riders 
who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or death. In that land 
we led a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We 
worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide 
plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the 
freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the 
late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were 
glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in 
the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the 
driven snow-dust burnt our faces. There were monotonous 
days, as we guided the trail cattle or the beef herds, hour after 
hour, at the slowest of walks; and minutes or hours teeming 
with excitement as we stopped stampedes or swam the herds 
across rivers treacherous with quicksands or brimmed with 
running ice. We knew toil and hardship and hunger and 
thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked 
among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds, with one 
another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and 
ours was the glory of work and the joy of living. 

Theodore Roosevelt 
(Autobiography) 



PREFACE 

To write any book is an adventure, but to write 
this book has been the kind of gay and romantic 
experience that makes any man who has partaken 
of it a debtor forever to the Giver of DeHghts. His- 
torical research, contrary to popular opinion, is one 
of the most thrilling of occupations, but I question 
whether any biographer has ever had a better time 
gathering his material than I have had. Amid the 
old scenes, the old epic life of the frontier has been 
re-created for me by the men who were the leading 
actors in it. But my contact with it has not been 
o-nly vicarious. In the course of this most grateful 
of labors I have myself come to know something of 
the life that Roosevelt knew thirty-five years ago 
— the hot desolation of noon in the scarred butte 
country ; the magic of dawn and dusk when the long 
shadows crept across the coulees and woke them to 
unexpected beauty; the solitude of the prairies, that 
have the vastness without the malignancy of the 
sea. I have come to know the thrill and the dust 
and the cattle-odors of the round-up; the warm com- 
panionship of the ranchman's dinner- table; such 
profanity as I never expect to hear again; singing 
and yarns and hints of the tragedy of prairie 
women; and, at the height of a barbecue, the appall- 
ing intrusion of death. I have felt in all its potency 



X PREFACE 

the spell which the "short-grass country" cast 
over Theodore Roosevelt ; and I cannot hear the word 
Dakota without feeling a stirring in my blood. 

It was Mr. Roosevelt himself who gave me the im- 
pulse to write this book, and it was the letters of in- 
troduction which he wrote early in 191 8 which made 
it possible for me to secure the friendly interest of 
the men who knew most about his life on the ranch 
and the range. '' If you want to know what I was 
like when I had bark on," he said, "you ought to 
talk to Bill Sewall and Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris 
and his brother Joe." I was writing a book about 
him for boys at the time, and again and again he 
said, "I want you to go out to Dakota!" On one 
occasion I referred to his life in the Bad Lands as 
"a kind of idyl." "That's it!" he exclaimed. 
"That's it ! That's exactly what it was !" 

The wish he had expressed, living, became in a 
sense a command after he was dead. The letters he 
had given me unsealed the lips of the men who, 
for thirty-five years, had steadily refused to reveal 
to "newspaper fellers" the intimate story of the 
romantic life they had shared with the man who 
became President of the United States. From Dick- 
inson, North Dakota, came Sylvane Ferris; from 
Terry, Montana, came "Joe" Ferris; from Somers, 
Montana, came "Bill" Merrifield; and, on their 
old stamping-ground along the Little Missouri, un- 
folded, bit by bit, the story of the four years of 
Roosevelt's active ranching life. In the deserted 
barroorh of the old "Metropolitan Hotel" at 



PREFACE 



XI 



Medora (rechristened the "Rough Riders"); on the 
ruins of the Maltese Cross cabin and under the mur- 
muring cottonwoods at Elkhorn, they spun their 
joyous yarns. Apart from what they had to tell, it 
was worth traveling two thirds across the Continent 
to come to know these figures of an heroic age; 
and to sit at Sylvane Ferris 's side as he drove his 
Overland along the trails of the Bad Lands and 
through the quicksands of the Little Missouri, 
was in itself not an insignificant adventure. Mrs. 
Margaret Roberts, at Dickinson, had her own 
stories to tell; and in the wilderness forty miles 
west of Lake McDonald, on the Idaho border, 
John Reuter, known to Roosevelt as "Dutch Wan- 
nigan, " told, as no one else could, of the time he 
was nearly killed by the Marquis de Mores. A 
year later it was Schuyler Lebo who guided me in 
a farther search for material, fifty miles south from 
Medora by buckboard through the wild, fantastic 
beauty of the Bad Lands. I doubt if there is any one 
I missed who had anything to tell of Roosevelt. 

So far as any facts relating to Roosevelt or to the 
Western frontier can ever be described as "cold," 
it is a narrative of cold facts which I have attempted 
to tell in this book. The truth, in this case, is ro- 
mantic enough and needs no embellishment. I have 
made every eft^ort to verify my narrative, but, to 
some extent, I have had to depend, inevitably, on 
the character of the men and women who gave me 
my data, as every historical writer must who deals 
not with documents (which may, of course, them- 



xll PREFACE 

selves be mendacious), but with what is, in a sense, 
"raw material." One highly dramatic story, dealing 
with Roosevelt's defiance of a certain desperate char- 
acter, which has at different times during the past 
twenty-five years been printed in leading news- 
papers and periodicals, told always by the same 
writer, I have had to reject because I could find no 
verification of it, though I think it may well be true. 

In weaving my material into a connected narrative 
I have consciously departed from fact in only one 
respect. Certain names — a half-dozen or so in all 
— are fictitious. In certain cases, in which the story 
I had to tell might give needless offense to the actors 
in it still surviving, or to their children, and in which 
I was consequently confronted by the alternative of 
rejecting the story in question or changing the names, 
I chose the latter course without hesitation. It is 
quite unessential, for instance, what the real name 
was of the lady known in this book as "Mrs. Cum- 
mins"; but her story is an important element in the 
narrative. To those who may recognize themselves 
under the light veil I have thrown over their por- 
traits, and may feel grieved, I can only say that, 
inasmuch as they were inhabitants of the Bad Lands 
when Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores 
shaped their destinies there for good or ill, they be- 
came historical figures and must take their chances 
at the judgment seat of posterity with Nebuchad- 
nezzar and Caesar and St. Augustine and Calamity 
Jane. 

The Northwestern newspapers of the middle 



PREFACE xiii 

eighties contain much valuable material, not only 
about the Alarquis and his romantic enterprises, 
which greatly interested the public, but about 
Roosevelt himself. The files of the Press of Dickin- 
son, North Dakota, and the Pioneer of Mandan, 
have proved especially useful, though scarcely more 
useful than those of the Bismarck Tribune, the Mm- 
neapolis Journal, and the Dispatch and Pioneer 
Press of St. Paul. The cut of Roosevelt's cattle- 
brands, printed on the jacket, is reproduced from the 
Stockprowers' Journal of Miles City. I have sought 
high Ind low for copies of the Bad Lands Cowboy, 
published in Medora, but only one copy — Joe 
Ferris's — has come to light. "'Bad-man' Fmnegan," 
it relates among other things, " is serving time in the 
Bismarck penitentiary for stealing Theodore Roose- 
velt's boat." But that is a part of the story; and this 

is only a Preface. ,, utt .• 

Colonel Roosevelt's own books, notably Huntmg 
Trips of a Ranchman," "Ranch Life and the Hunt- 
ing Trail," ''The Wilderness Hunter," and the 
"Autobiography," have furnished me an important 
part of my material, giving me minute details of his 
hunting experiences which I could have secured 
nowhere else; and I am indebted to the publishers, 
Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, and the Century Company, for permis- 
sion to use them. I am indebted to the foUowmg 
publishers, likewise, for permission to reprint certam 
verses as chapter headings: Messrs. Houghton 
MifBin Company ("Riders of the Stars." by Henry 



xiv PREFACE 

Herbert Knibbs, and "Songs of Men," edited by 
Robert Frothingham) ; the Macmillan Company 
(*' Cowboy Songs," edited by Professor John A. 
Lomax); and Mr. Richard G. Badger ("Sun and 
Saddle Leather," by Badger Clark). I am espe- 
cially indebted to Mr. Roosevelt's sisters, Mrs. W. 
S. Cowles and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, and to the 
Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge for the opportunity 
to examine the unpublished letters of Colonel Roose- 
velt in their possession and to reprint excerpts from 
them. Through the courtesy of Mr. Clarence L. Hay 
I have been able to print a part of an extraordinary 
letter written by President Roosevelt to Secretary 
Hay in 1903; through the courtesy of Messrs. Har- 
per and Brothers I have been permitted to make 
use of material in "Bill Sewall's story of T. R.," by 
William W. Sewall, and in "The Boys' Life of 
Theodore Roosevelt." 

Partly from books and letters, partly from docu- 
ments and old newspapers, I have gathered bit by 
bit the story of Roosevelt's life as a ranchman; but 
my main sources of material have been the men 
and women (scattered now literally from Maine to 
the State of Washington) who were Roosevelt's 
companions and friends. It is difficult to express 
adequately my gratitude to them for their unfailing 
helpfulness; their willingness to let themselves be 
quizzed, hour after hour, and to answer, in some cases, 
a very drumfire of importunate letters; above all 
for their resistance, to what must at times have been 
an almost overpowering temptation, to "string the 



PREFACE 



XV 



tenderfoot." They took my inquisition with grave 
seriousness and gave me what they had without 
reserve and without elaboration. 

There are five men to whom I am peculiarly in- 
debted: to Mr. Sylvanus M. Ferris and Mr. A. W. 
Merrifield, who were Roosevelt's ranch-partners at 
the Maltese Cross Ranch, and to Mr. William W. 
Sewall, of Island Falls, Maine, who was his fore- 
man at Elkhorn; to Mr. Lincoln A. Lang, of Phil- 
adelphia, who, having the seeing eye, has helped me 
more than any one else to visualize the men and 
women who played the prominent parts in the life 
of Medora; and to Mr. A. T. Packard, of Chicago, 
founder and editor of the Bad Lands Cowboy, who 
told me much of the efforts to bring law and order 
into Billings County. To Mr. Joseph A. Ferris and 
Mrs. Ferris; to Mr. William T. Dantz, of Vineland, 
New Jersey; to Mrs. Margaret Roberts and Dr. 
Victor H. Stickney, both of Dickinson, North Da- 
kota; to Mr. George Myers, of Townsend, Montana; 
to Mr. John Reuter, to Mr. John C. Fisher, of Van- 
couver, British Columbia, and to Mr. John Willis, of 
Glasgow, Montana, Roosevelt's companion of many 
hunts, I am indebted to a scarcely less degree. 
Others who gave me important assistance were Mr. 
Howard Eaton, of Wolf, Wyoming, and Mr. "Pete" 
Pellessier of Sheridan, Wyoming; Mr. James Har- 
mon, Mr. Oren Kendley, Mr. Schuyler Lebo, and 
Mr. William McCarty, of Medora, North Dakota; 
Mr. William G. Lang, of Baker, Montana; Mr. W. 
H. Fortier, of Spokane, Washington; Mr. Edward 



x\i PREFACE 

A. Allen and Mr. George F. Will, of Bismarck, North 
Dakota; Mr. J. B. Brubaker, of Terry; Mr. Laton 
A. Huffman and Mr. C. W. Butler, of Miles City, 
Montana; Dr. Alexander Lambert, of New York 
City; Dr. Herman Haupt, of Setauket, New York; 
the Reverend Edgar Haupt, of St. Paul, Minnesota; 
Mr. Alfred White, of Dickinson; Mr. Dwight Smith, 
of Chicago; Mrs. Granville Stuart, of Grantsdale, 
Montana; Mr. Frank B. Linderman, of Somers, 
Montana; Mr. C. R. Greer, of Hamilton, Ohio; 
JMrs. George Sarchet, of New England, South Da- 
kota; and especially, my secretary, Miss Gisela West- 
hoff. 

I have enjoyed the writing-man's rarest privilege 
— the assistance of wise and friendly critics, notably 
Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard; Presi- 
dent John Grier Hibben, of Princeton; and Professor 
William A. Dunning, of Colum.bia, who generously 
consented to serv^e as a committee of the Roosevelt 
Memorial Association to examine my manuscript; 
and Dr. John A. Lester, of the Hill School, who has 
read the proof and given me valuable suggestions. 

To all these friendly helpers my gratitude is deep. 
My w^armest thanks, however, are due Mr. William 
Boyce Thompson, President of the Roosevelt Me- 
morial Association, whose quick imagination and 
effective interest made possible the collection of the 
material under the auspices of the Association. 

H. H. 

Fairfield, Connecticut 
June 20, 1 92 1 



CONTENTS 

Introduction xxv 

Chapter I. Arrival — Little Missouri — A game coun- 
try — Joe Ferris — The trail to Chimney Butte — 
The three Canadians — The buckskin mare 3 

Chapter II. Gregor Lang — The Vine family — The 
buffalo hunt — The argonauts — Politics — The 
passing of the buffalo — Pursuit — The charge of 
the buffalo — Broken slumbers — Failure — " It's 
dogged that does it" — Roosevelt makes a decision 

— He acquires two partners — He kills his buffalo 18 

Chapter III. Jake Maunders — The "bad men" — 
Archie the precocious — County organization — 
The graces of the wicked 47 

Chapter IV. Marquis de Mores — Founding of Medora 

— The machinations of Maunders result in blood- 
shed — The boom begins — The Marquis in busi- 
ness — Roosevelt returns East — The Marquis's 
idea — Packard — Frank Vine's little joke — Me- 
dora blossoms forth — The Marquis has a new dream 

— Joe Ferris acquires a store — Roosevelt meets 
disaster — Invasion — ■ Roosevelt turns West 58 

Chapter V. "I will not be dictated to!" — George 
Myers — Mrs. Maddox — The Maltese Cross — 
On the round-up — " Hasten forward quickly there!" 

— Trying out the tenderfoot — A letter to " Bamie " 

— The emerald biscuits 89 

Chapter VI. The neighbors — Mrs. Roberts — Hell- 
Roaring Bill Jones — A good man for "sassing" — 
The master of Medora — The Marquis's stage-line 

— The road to Deadwood — The Marquis finds a 
manager 108 



xviii CONTENTS 

Chapter VII. The gayety of Medora — Holocaust — 
Influence of the cowboy — Moulding public opin- 
ion — The " Bastile" — The mass meeting — The 
thieves — The underground railway — Helpless- 
ness of the righteous — Granville Stuart — The 
three argonauts 123 

Chapter VIII. The new ranch — The bully at Mingus- 
ville — The end of the bully — Dakota discovers 
Roosevelt — Stuart's vigilantes — Sewall and Dow 
— Mrs. Lang — Sewall speaks his mind — Enter 
the Marquis 148 

Chapter IX. "Dutch Wannigan" — Political sirens — 

"Able to face anything" 167 

Chapter X. The start for the Big Horns — Roosevelt 
writes home — • A letter to Lodge — Indians — 
Camp in the mountains — Roosevelt gets his bear 175 

Chapter XI. Rumblings from the Marquis — The 
"stranglers" — The band of "Flopping Bill" — 
Fifteen marked men — Maunders the discreet — 
Sewall receives callers 189 

Chapter XII. "Medicine Buttes" — Roosevelt returns 
to Elkhorn — Maunders threatens Roosevelt — 
Packard's stage-line — The dress rehearsal — An- 
other bubble bursts 202 

Chapter XIII. Bleak camping — Roosevelt "starts a 
reform" — The deputy marshal — Winter activi- 
ties — Breaking broncos — A tenderfoot holds his 
own — Wild country — Mountain sheep — The 
stockmen's association 215 

Chapter XIV. Winter misery — Return to Medora — 
Illness and recovery — Mingusville — " He's drunk 
and on the shoot" — The seizure of Bill 235 

Chapter XV. The spring of 1885 — Swimming the Lit- 



CONTENTS XIX 

tie Missouri — Ranching companions — Golden ex- 
pectations — The boss of the Maltese Cross — The 
buttermilk — Hospitality at Yule — Lang's love of 
debate — Nitch comes to dine 248 

Chapter XVI. Cattle torture — Trailing cattle — 
Roosevelt's horsemanship — Gentling the Devil — 
The spring round-up — The first encampment — 
The day's work — Diversions — Profanity — 
"Fight or be friends" 266 

Chapter XVII. The "mean" horse — Ben Butler — 
Dr. Stickney — Dinner with Mrs. Cummins — The . 
stampede — Roping an earl's son — A letter to 
Lodge — Sylvane's adventure — Law 286 

Chapter XVIII. Sewall's skepticism — Interview at 
St. Paul — The women-folks — The Elkhorn "Out- 
fit" — The Wadsworths' dog 305 

Chapter XIX. Medora — "Styles in the Bad Lands" 
— The coming of law — The preachers — Packard's 
parson — Johnny O'Hara 318 

Chapter XX. De Mores the undaunted — Genealogy 
of the Marquis — Roosevelt and the Marquis — 
Hostility — The first clash — Indictment of the 
Marquis — The Marquis's trial — The Marquis 
sees red — Peace 331 

Chapter XXI. Red man and white — Roosevelt's ad- 
venture — Good Indian, dead Indian — Prairie 
fires — Sewall delivers a lecture — The testing of 
Mrs. Joe — Mrs. Joe takes hold 350 

Chapter XXII. The theft of the boat -- Redhead Fin- 
negan — Preparations for pursuit — Departure — 
"Hands up!" — Capture of the thieves — Ma- 
rooned — Cross country to jail — Arrival in Dick- 
inson — "The only damn fool" 365 



XX CONTENTS 

Chapter XXIII. Medora's first election — The celebra- 
tion — Miles City meeting — Roosevelt's cattle 
prospects — "His upper lip is stiff" — Completing 
"Benton " — The summer of 1886 — Influence over 
cowboys — "A Big Day" — Oratory — Roosevelt 
on Americanism — "You will be President" 387 

Chapter XXIV. A troop of Rough Riders — Premoni- 
tions of trouble — The hold-up — The Cceur 
dAlenes — Hunting white goats — John Willis — 
Elkhorn breaks up — Facing east 412 

Chapter XXV. The bad winter — The first blizzard — 
Destruction of the cattle — The spring flood — The 
boneyard 4^9 

Chapter XXVI. Roosevelt's losses — Morrill vs. Myers 
— Roosevelt takes a hand — A country of ruins — 
New schemes of the Marquis — The fading of Me- 
dora 440 

Chapter XXVII. Bill Jones — Old friends — Seth Bul- 
lock — Death of the Marquis — Roosevelt's prog- 
ress — Return as Governor — Medora celebrates — 
The "cowboy bunch" — Return as President — 
Death of Bill Jones — The Bad Lands to-day 453 

Appendix 477 

Index 4^3 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Theodore Roosevelt on the Round-up, 1885 Frontispiece 

Photograph by Ingersoll, Buffalo, Minnesota 

Maltese Cross Ranch-House 16 

View from the Door of the Ranch-House 16 

The Prairie at the Edge of the Bad Lands 32 

Photograph by Holmboe, Bismarck, N. D. 

"Broken Country" 32 

Photograph by Holmboe 

Roosevelt in 1883 48 

Medora in the Winter of 1883-84 48 

"Dutch Wannigan" and Frank O'Donald 64 

Scene of the Killing of Riley Luffsey 64 

Antoine de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Mores 76 

By courtesy of L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Montana 

Sylvane Ferris 92 

A. W. Merrifield g2 
The Maltese Cross Ranch-House as it was when 

Roosevelt lived in it 92 
Photograph by C. R. Greer, Hamilton, Ohio 

The Ford of the Little Missouri near the Maltese 

Cross 108 

A. T. Packard 130 

Office of the "Bad Lands Cowboy" 130 

The Little Missouri just above Elkhorn 150 

Elkhorn Bottom 164 

A Group of Bad Lands Citizens 176 

Roosevelt's Brands igo 

From the Stockgrowers Journal, Miles City 

Fantastic Formation at Medicine Buttes 202 



xxii ILLUSTRATIONS 

Medicine Buttes 202 
Poster of the Marquis de Mores's Deadwood Stage- 
Line 212 

By courtesy of the North Dakota Historical Society 

Theodore Roosevelt (1884) 236 

Elkhorn Ranch Buildings from the River 252 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 

Gregor Lang 262 

Mrs. Lang 262 

The Maltese Cross "Outfit" 276 

The Maltese Cross "Chuck-Wagon", 276 

The Scene of the Stampede 296 

Elkhorn Ranch-House 310 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 

Site of Elkhorn (1919) 310 

Hell-Roaring Bill Jones 320 

Bill Williams's Saloon (1919) 320 

Hotel de Mores 332 

The Abattoir of the Marquis de Mores 332 

The Bad Lands near Medora 346 

Joseph A. Ferris 360 

Joe Ferris's Store 360 

WiLMOT Dow and Theodore Roosevelt (1886) 370 

The Piazza at Elkhorn 370 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 

Dow AND SeWALL in THE BOAT 384 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 

Medora in 1 919 402 
Ferris and Merrifield on the Ruins of the Shack 

AT Elkhorn 424 

Corrals at Elkhorn 424 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 

George Myers 442 



ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii 

The Little Missouri at Elkhorn 442 

Lincoln Lang 45^ 

William T. Dantz 45^ 

Margaret Roberts 45^ 

"Dutch Wannigan" 45^ 

Joe and Sylvane Ferris and Merrifield (1919) 472 

Rough Riders Hotel 472 

Photographs of Bad Lands scenes, unless otherwise indicated, were 
made by the author. 

The end-paper map is from a drawing made for the book by Lincoln A. 
Lang. The town of Mingusville is indicated on it under its present name — 
Wibaux. 



INTRODUCTION 

The trail-tracer of Theodore Roosevelt's frontier 
life has given the members of this Advisory Com- 
mittee of Three of the Roosevelt Memorial Associa- 
tion the opportunity of a first reading of his book. 
The duty of considering the manuscript and making 
suggestions has been merged in the pleasure of the 
revealing account of that young man who forty 
years ago founded a persona! College of the Plains 
in raw Dakota. 

Three are the essentials of the good biographer — • 
historic sense, common sense, and human sense. To 
the mind of the Committee, Mr. Hagedorn has put 
into service all three of these senses. Every writer 
of history must make himself an explorer in the 
materials out of which he is to build. To the usual 
outfit of printed matter, public records, and private 
papers, Mr. Hagedorn has added an unexpected 
wealth of personal memories from those who were 
part of Roosevelt's first great adventure in life. 
The book is a thorough-going historical investiga- 
tion into both familiar and remote sources. 

The common sense of the work is in its choice of 
the things that counted in the experience of the 
ranchman, hunter, and citizen of a tumultuous 
commonwealth. All the essential facts are here, and 
also the incidents which gave them life. Even apart 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

from the central figure, the book reconstructs one of 
the most fascinating phases of American history. 

That is not all that is expected by the host of 
Roosevelt's friends. They want the man — the 
young Harvard graduate and New York clubman 
who sought the broader horizon of the Far West in 
making, and from it drew a knowledge of his kind 
which became the bed-rock of his later career. The 
writer's personal affection for and understanding of 
Roosevelt have illuminated the whole story. He 
paints a true portrait of an extraordinary man in a 
picturesque setting. 

William A. Dunning 
Albert Bushnell Hart 
John Grier Hibben 



ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 



^ 



My Friends, I never can sufficiently express the obligations 
I am under to the territory of Dakota, for it was here that I 
lived a number of years in a ranch house in the cattle country, 
and I regard my experience during those years, when I lived 
and worked with my own fellow ranchmen on what was then 
the frontier, as the most important educational asset of all my 
life. It is a mighty good thing to know men, not from looking 
at them, but from having been one of them. When you have 
worked with them, when you have lived with them, you do 
not have to wonder how they feel, because you feel it yourself. 
Every now and then I am amused when newspapers in the 
East — perhaps, I may say, not always friendly to me — 
having prophesied that I was dead wrong on a certain issue, 
and then finding out that I am right, express acid wonder how 
I am able to divine how people are thinking. Well, sometimes 
I don't and sometimes I do; but when I do, it comes simply 
from the fact that this is the way I am thinking myself. I 
know how the man that works with his hands and the man on 
the ranch are thinking, because I have been there and I am 
thinking that way myself. It is not that I divine the way they 
are thinking, but that I think the same way. 

Theodore Roosevelt 
Speech at Sioux Falls 

September 3, 1910. 



ROOSEVELT IN THE 

BAD LANDS 

I 

Rainy dark or firelight, bacon rind or pie, 

Livin' is a luxury that don't come high; 

Oh, be happy and onruly while our years and luck allow, 

For we all must die or marry less than forty years from now! 

Badger Clark 

The train rumbled across three hundred feet of /Pfj 
trestle and came to a stop. A young man, slen- 
der, not over- tall, with spectacles and a moustache, 
descended the steps. If he expected that his foot, 
groping below the bottom step in the blackness for 
something to land on, would find a platform, he 
was doomed to disappointment. The '' depot " at 
Little Missouri did not boast a platform. The 
young man pulled his duffle-bag and gun-case down 
the steps; somebody waved a lantern; the train 
Btirred, gained momentum, and was gone, having ac- 
complished its immediate mission, which was to de- 
posit a New York " dude," politician and would-be 
hunter, nanied Theodore Roosevelt, in the Bad 
Lands of Dakota. 

The time was three o'clock of a cool, September 
morning, and the place, in the language of the Bad 
Lands, was " dark as the inside of a caow." If 
the traveler from afar had desired illumination and 
a reception committee, he should have set his arrival 



4 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

not for September 7th, but for September 6th. 
Twenty-four hours previous, it happened, the 
citizens of Little Missouri had, in honor of a dis- 
tinguished party which was on its way westward to 
celebrate the completion of the road, amply antic- 
ipated any passion for entertainment which the 
passengers on the Overland might have possessed. 
As the engine came to a stop, a deafening yell 
pierced the night, punctuated with pistol-shots. 
Cautious investigation revealed figures dancing 
wildly around a bonfire; and the passengers re- 
membered the worst they had ever heard about 
Indians. The flames shot upward, setting the 
shadows fantastically leaping up the precipitous 
bluffs and among the weird petrifactions of a devil's 
nightmare that rimmed the circle of flaring light. A 
man with a gun in his hand climbed aboard the 
train and made his way to the dining-car, yelling 
for " cow-grease," and demanding, at the least, a 
ham-bone. It took the burliest of his comrades to 
transport the obstreperous one back to solid earth 
just as the train moved out. 

There was nothing so theatrical awaiting Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. The " depot " was deserted. 
Roosevelt dragged his belongings through the 
sagebrush toward a huge black building looming 
northeastw^ard through the night, and hammered 
on the door until the proprietor appeared, muttering 
curses. 

The face that Roosevelt saw, in the light of a 
smoky lantern, was not one to inspire confidence in 



ARRIVAL 5 

a tenderfoot on a dark night. The features were 
those of a man who might have been drinking, with 
inconsiderable interruptions, for a very long time. 
He was short and stout and choleric, with a wiry 
moustache under a red nose; and seemed to be 
distinctly under the impression that Roosevelt had 
done something for which he should apologize. 

He led the way upstairs. Fourteen beds were 
scattered about the loft which was the second story 
of the Pyramid Park Hotel, and which, Roosevelt 
heard subsequently, was known as the " bull-pen." 
One was unoccupied. He accepted it without a 
murmur. 

What the thirteen hardened characters who were 
his roommates said next morning, when they dis- 
covered the " Eastern punkin-lily " which had 
blossomed in their midst, is lost to history. It was 
unquestionably frank, profane, and unwashed. He 
was, in fact, not a sight to awaken sympathy in 
the minds of such inhabitants as Little Missouri 
possessed. He had just recovered from an attack 
of cholera morbus, and though he had written his 
mother from Chicago that he was already ** feeling 
like a fighting-cock," the marks of his illness were 
still on his face. Besides, he wore glasses, which, 
as he later discovered, were considered in the Bad 
Lands as a sign of a " defective moral character." 

It was a world of strange and awful beauty into 
which Roosevelt stepped as he emerged from the 
dinginess of the ramshackle hotel into the crisp 
autumn morning. Before him lay a dusty, sage- 



6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

brush flat walled in on three sides by scarred and 
precipitous clay buttes. A trickle of sluggish water 
in a wide bed, partly sand and partly baked gumbo, 
oozed beneath steep banks at his back, swung 
sharply westward, and gave the flat on the north 
a fringe of dusty-looking cottonwoods, thirstily 
drinking the only source of moisture the country 
seemed to afford. Directly across the river, beyond 
another oval-shaped piece of bottom-land, rose a 
steep bluff, deeply shadowed against the east, and 
south of it stretched in endless succession the 
seamed ranges and fantastic turrets and cupolas 
and flying buttresses of the Bad Lands. 

It was a region of weird shapes garbed in barbaric 
colors, gray-olive striped with brown, lavender 
striped with black, chalk pinnacles capped with 
flaming scarlet. French-Canadian voyageiirs, a cen- 
tury previous, finding the weather-washed ravines 
wicked to travel through, spoke of them as mau- 
vaises terres pour traverser, and the name clung. The 
whole region, it was said, had once been the bed 
of a great lake, holding in its lap the rich clays 
and loams which the rains carried down into it. 
The passing of ages brought vegetation, and the 
passing of other ages turned that vegetation into 
coal. Other deposits settled over the coal. At last 
this vast lake found an outlet in the Missouri. 
The wear and wash of the waters cut in time through 
the clay, the coal, and the friable limestone of 
succeeding deposits, creating ten thousand water- 
courses bordered by precipitous bluffs and buttes, 



LITTLE MISSOURI 7 

which every storm gashed and furrowed anew. On 
the tops of the flat buttes was rich soil and in count- 
less pleasant valleys were green pastures, but 
there were regions where for miles only sagebrush 
and stunted cedars lived a starved existence. Bad 
lands they were, for man or beast, and Bad Lands 
they remained. 

The " town " of Little Missouri consisted of a 
group of primitive buildings scattered about the 
shack which did duty as a railroad station. The 
Pyramid Park Hotel stood immediately north of 
the tracks ; beside it stood the one-story palace of sin 
of which one, who shall, for the purposes of this 
story, be known as Bill Williams, was the owner, 
and one who shall be known as Jess Hogue, the evil 
genius. South of the track a comical, naive Swede 
named Johnny Nelson kept a store when he was not 
courting Katie, the hired girl in Mrs. McGeeney's 
boarding-house next door, or gambling away his 
receipts under Hogue's crafty guidance. Directly 
to the east, on the brink of the river, the railroad 
section-foreman, Fitzgerald, had a shack and a 
wife who quarreled unceasingly with her neighbor, 
Mrs. McGeeney. At a corresponding place on the 
other side of the track, a villainous gun-fighter 
named Maunders lived (as far as possible) by his 
neighbors' toil. A quarter of a mile west of him, 
in a grove of cottonwood trees, stood a group of 
gray, log buildings known as the " cantonment," 
where a handful of soldiers had been quartered 
under a major named Coomba, to guard the con- 



8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

struction crews on the railroad from the attacks of 
predatory Indians seeking game in their ancient 
hunting-grounds. A few huts in the sagebrush, a 
half-dozen miners* shacks under the butte to the 
south, and one or two rather pretentious frame 
houses in process of construction completed what 
was Little Missouri; but Little Missouri was not 
the only outpost of civilization at this junction of 
the railroad and the winding, treacherous river. On 
the eastern bank, on the flat under the bluff that 
six months previous had been a paradise for jack- 
rabbits, a few houses and a few men were attempt- 
ing to prove to the world, amid a chorus of hammers, 
that they constituted a town and had a future. 
The settlement called itself Medora. The air was 
full of vague but wonderful stories of a French 
marquis who was building it and who owned it, 
body and soul. 

Roosevelt had originally been turned in the 
direction of the Bad Lands by a letter in one of the 
New York papers by a man from Pittsburgh named 
Howard Eaton and the corroborative enthusiasm 
of a high-spirited naval officer named Gorringe, 
whose appeals for an adequate navy brought 
Roosevelt exuberantly to his side. Gorringe was a 
man of wide interests and abilities, who managed, to 
a degree mysterious to a layman, to combine his 
naval activities with the work of a consulting en- 
gineer, the promotion of a shipyard, and the forma- 
tion of a syndicate to carry on a cattle business in 
Dakota. He had gained international notice by 



A GAME COUNTRY 9 

his skill in bringing the obelisk known as " Cleo- 
patra's Needle " from Alexandria to New York, 
and had six months previous flared before the 
public in front-page headlines by reason of a sharp 
controversy with the Secretary of the Navy, which 
had resulted in Gorringe's resignation. 

Roosevelt had said that he wanted to shoot 
buffalo while there were still buffalo left to shoot, and 
Gorringe had suggested that he go to Little Missouri. 
That villainous gateway to the Bad Lands was, it 
seems, the headquarters for a motley collection of 
guides and hunters, some of them experts,^ the 
majority of them frauds, who were accustomed to 
take tourists and sportsmen for a fat price into the 
heart of the fantastic and savage country. The 
region was noted for game. It had been a great 
winter range for buffalo; and elk, mountain-sheep, 
blacktail and whitetail deer, antelope and beaver 
were plentiful; now and then even an occasional 
bear strayed to the river's edge from God knows 
whence. Jake Maunders, with his sinister face, was 
the center of information for tourists, steering the 
visitor in the direction of game by day and of Bill 
Williams, Jess Hogue, and their crew of gamblers 
and confidence men by night. Gorringe had planned 
to go with Roosevelt himself, but at the last moment 
had been forced to give up the trip. He advised 
Roosevelt to let one of the men representing his own 

* Roosevelt tells, in his Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, of the 
most notable of these, a former scout and Indian fighter named 
" Vic " Smith, whose exploits were prodigious. 



10 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

interests find him a guide, especially the Vines, 
father and son. 

Roosevelt found that Vine, the father, was 
none other than the crusty old party who had 
reluctantly admitted him at three o'clock that 
morning to the Pyramid Park Hotel. The Captain, 
as he was called, refused to admit that he knew 
any one who would undertake the ungrateful 
business of " trundling a tenderfoot " on a buffalo 
hunt; and suggested that Roosevelt consult his 
son Frank. 

Frank Vine turned out to be far less savage than 
his father, but quite as bibulous, a rotund hail- 
fellow-well-met, oily as an Esquimau, with round, 
twinkling eyes and a reservoir of questionable 
stories which he tapped on the slightest provoca- 
tion. The guidebook called him " the innkeeper," 
which has a romantic connotation not altogether 
true to the hard facts of Frank's hostelry, and spoke 
of him as " a jolly, fat, rosy-cheeked young man, 
brimming over with animal spirits." He habitually 
wore a bright crimson mackina'w shirt, tied at the 
neck with a gaudy silk handkerchief, and fringed 
buckskin trousers, which Roosevelt, who had a 
weakness for " dressing up," no doubt envied him. 
He was, it seemed, the most obliging soul in the 
world, being perfectly willing to do anything for 
anybody at any time except to be honest, to be 
sober, or to work; and agreed to find Roosevelt a 
guide, suggesting that Joe Ferris, who was barn 
superintendent for him at the Cantonment and 



JOE FERRIS II 

occasionally served as a guide for tourists who 
came to see " Pyramid Park," might be persuaded 
to find him a buffalo. 

Frank guided his " tenderfoot " to the Post 
store, of which he was manager. It was a long log 
building, one fourth used for trading and the rest 
for storage. Single window lights, set into the wall 
here and there, gave the place the air of perpetual 
dusk which, it was rumored, was altogether neces- 
sary to cloak Frank's peculiar business methods. 

They found Joe Ferris in the store. That in- 
dividual turned out to be as harmless a looking 
being as any " down-East " farmer — a short, 
stockily built young fellow of Roosevelt's own age, 
with a moustache that drooped and a friendly pair 
of eyes. He did not accept the suggestion that he 
take Roosevelt on a buffalo hunt, without debate. 
The " dude " from the East did not, in fact, look at 
first sight as though he would be of much comfort 
on a hunt. His large, round glasses gave him a studi- 
ous look that to a frontiersman was ominous. Joe 
Ferris agreed at last to help the tenderfoot find a 
buffalo, but he agreed with reluctance and the 
deepest misgivings. 

Ferris and Frank Vine, talking the matter over, 
decided that the camp of Gregor Lang on Little 
Cannonball Creek fifty miles up the river, was the 
logical place to use as headquarters for the hunt. 
Gregor Lang, it happened, had just left town 
homeward bound with a wagon-load of supplies. He 
was a Scotchman, who had been a prosperous 



12 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

distiller in Ireland, until in a luckless moment the 
wife of his employer had come to the conclusion 
that it was wicked to manufacture a product which, 
when taken in sufficient quantities, was instru- 
mental in sending people to hell; and had prevailed 
on her husband to close the distillery. What Frank 
Vine said in describing Gregor Lang to Roosevelt 
is lost to history. Frank had his own reason for not 
loving Lang. 

Ferris had a brother Sylvane, who Was living 
with his partner, A. W. Merrifield, in a cabin seven 
or eight miles south of Little Missouri, and sug- 
gested that they spend the night with him. Late 
that afternoon, Joe and his buckboard, laden to 
overflowing, picked Roosevelt up at the hotel and 
started for the ford a hundred yards north of the 
trestle. On the brink of the bluff they stopped. 
The hammer of Roosevelt's Winchester was broken. 
In Ferris's opinion, moreover, the Winchester it- 
self was too light for buffalo, and Joe thought it 
might be a good scheme to borrow a hammer and 
a buffalo-gun from Jake Maunders. 

Jake was at home. He was not a reassuring 
person to meet, nor one of whom a cautious man 
would care to ask many favors. His face was 
villainous and did not pretend to be anything else. 
He was glad to lend the hammer and the gun, he 
said. 

September days had a way of being baking hot 
along the Little Missouri, and even in the late 
afternoon the air was usually like a blast from a 



THE TRAIL TO CHIMNEY BUTTE 13 

furnace. But the country which appeared stark 
and dreadful under the straight noon sun, at dusk 
took on a magic more enticing, it seemed, because 
it grew out of such forbidding desolation. The 
buttes, protruding like buttresses from the ranges 
that bordered the river, threw lengthening shadows 
across the grassy draws. Each gnarled cedar in 
the ravines took on color and personality. The 
blue of the sky grew soft and deep. 

They climbed to the top of a butte where the road 
passed between gray cliffs, then steeply down on the 
other side into the cool greenness of a timbered 
bottom where the grass was high underfoot and the 
cottonwoods murmured and twinkled overhead. 
They passed a log ranch-house known as the 
" Custer Trail," in memory of the ill-fated expedi- 
tion which had camped in the adjacent flat seven 
years before. Howard Eaton and his brothers lived 
there and kept open house for a continuous stream of 
Eastern sportsmen. A mile beyond, they forded the 
river; a quarter-mile farther on, they forded it 
again, passed through a belt of cottonwoods into 
a level valley where the buttes receded, leaving a 
wide stretch of bottom-lands dominated by a soli- 
tary peak known as Chimney Butte, and drew up 
in front of a log cabin. 

Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield were there and 
greeted Roosevelt without noticeable enthusiasm. 
They admitted later that they thought he was 
"just another Easterner," and they did not like his 
glasses at all. They were both lithe, slender young 



14 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

fellows, wiry and burnt by the sun, Sylvane twenty 
four or thereabouts, Merrifield four years his senior. 
Sylvane was shy with a boyish shyness that had a 
way of slipping into good-natured grins; Merrifield, 
the shrewder and more mature of the two, was by 
nature reserved and reticent. They did not have 
much to say to the " dude " from New York un- 
til supper in the dingy, one-room cabin of cotton- 
wood logs, set on end, gave way to cards, and in 
the excitement of " Old Sledge " the ice began to 
break. A sudden fierce squawking from the direction 
of the chicken-shed, abutting the cabin on the west, 
broke up the game and whatever restraint remained; 
for they all piled out of the house together, hunting 
the bobcat which had raided the roost. They did 
not find the bobcat, but all sense of strangeness 
was gone when they returned to the house, and 
settling down on bunks and boxes opened their 
lives to each other. 

The Ferrises and Merrifield were Canadians who 
had drifted west from their home in New Brunswick 
and, coming out to the Dakota frontier two years 
previous because the Northern Pacific Railroad 
carried emigrants westward for nothing, had re- 
mained there because the return journey cost five 
cents a mile. They worked the first summer as 
section hands. Then, in the autumn, being back- 
woodsmen, they took a contract to cut cordwood, 
and all that winter worked together up the river at 
Sawmill Bottom, cutting timber. But Merrifield 
was an inveterate and skillful hunter, and while 



THE THREE CANADIANS 15 

Joe took to doing odd jobs, and Sylvane took to 
driving mules at the Cantonment, Merrifield scoured 
the prairie for buffalo and antelope and crept 
through the underbrush of countless coulees for 
deer. For two years he furnished the Northern 
Pacific dining-cars with venison at five cents a 
pound. He was a sure shot, absolutely fearless, 
and with a debonair gayety that found occasional 
expression in odd pranks. Once, riding through the 
prairie near the railroad, and being thirsty and not 
relishing a drink of the alkali water of the Little 
Missouri, he flagged an express with his red hand- 
kerchief, stepped aboard, helped himself to ice-water, 
and rode off again, to the speechless indignation of 
the conductor. 

The three men had prospered in a small way, and 
while Joe turned banker and recklessly loaned the 
attractive but unstable Johnny Nelson a hundred 
dollars to help him to his feet, Sylvane and Merri- 
field bought a few horses and a few head of cattle, 
took on shares a hundred and fifty more, belonging 
to an old reprobate of a ranchman named Wads- 
worth and a partner of his named Halley, and, 
under the shadow of the bold peak that was a land- 
mark for miles around, started a ranch which they 
called the " Chimney Butte," and every one else 
called, after their brand, the " Maltese Cross." A 
man named Bly who had kept a hotel in Bismarck, 
at a time when Bismarck was wild, and had drifted 
west with the railroad, was, that season, cutting 
logs for ties a hundred and fifty miles south in the 



i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Short Pine Hills. He attempted to float the timber 
down the river, with results disastrous to his 
enterprise, but beneficial to the boys at Chimney 
Butte. A quantity of logs perfectly adapted for 
building purposes stacked themselves at a bend not 
an eighth of a mile from the center of their range. 
The boys set them on end, stockade-fashion, packed 
the chinks, threw on a mud roof, and called it 
" home." 

Lang's cow-camp, which was to be the starting- 
point for the buffalo hunt, was situated some forty- 
five miles to the south, in the neighborhood of Pretty 
Buttes. Merrifield and the Ferrises had spent some 
months there the previous winter, staying with a 
half-breed named O' Donald and a German named 
Jack Reuter, known to the countryside as '* Dutch 
Wannigan," who had built the rough log cabin and 
used it as their headquarters. Buffalo at that time 
had been plentiful there, and the three Canadians 
had shot them afoot and on horseback, now and 
then teasing one of the lumbering hulks into charg- 
ing, for the excitement of the " close shave " the 
maddened beast would provide. If there were 
buffalo anywhere, there would be buffalo somewhere 
near Pretty Buttes. 

Joe, who was of a sedentary disposition, decided 
that they would make the long trip south in the 
buckboard, but Roosevelt protested. He saw the 
need of the buckboard to carry the supplies, but he 
saw no reason why he should sit in it all day. He 
asked for an extra saddle horse. 





^^^W-MI^^"''^ 



S«^'--?*v, 



MALTESE CROSS RANCH-HOUSE 



K A '"^j. 




VIEW FROM THE DOOR OF THE MALTESE CROSS RANCH-HOUSE 



THE BUCKSKIN MARE 17 

The three declared they did not have an extra 
saddle horse. 

Roosevelt pleaded. The three Canadians there- 
upon became suspicious and announced more firmly 
than before that they did not have an extra saddle 
horse. 

Roosevelt protested fervidly that he could not 
possibly sit still in a buckboard, driving fifty miles. 

" By gosh, he wanted that saddle horse so bad," 
said Joe a long time after, " that we were afraid to 
let him have it. Why, we didn't know him from 
Job's off ox. We didn't know but what he'd ride 
away with it. But, say, he wanted that horse so 
blamed bad, that when he see we weren't going to 
let him have it, he offered to buy it for cash." 

That proposal sounded reasonable to three cau- 
tious frontiersmen, and, before they all turned into 
their bunks that night, Roosevelt had acquired a 
buckskin mare named Nell, and therewith his first 
physical hold on the Bad Lands. 



II 

It rains here when it rains an' it's hot here when it's hot, 

The real folks is real folks which city folks is not. 

The dark is as the dark was before the stars was made; 

The sun is as the sun was before God thought of shade; 

An' the prairie an' the butte-tops an' the long winds, when they blow, 

Is like the things what Adam knew on his birthday, long ago. 

From Medora Nights 

Joe in the buckboard and Roosevelt on his new 
acquisition started south at dawn. 

The road to Lang's — or the trail rather, for it 
consisted of two wheel-tracks scarcely discernible 
on the prairie grass and only to be guessed at in the 
sagebrush — lay straight south across a succession 
of flats, now wide, now narrow, cut at frequent 
intervals by the winding, wood-fringed Little Mis- 
souri ; a region of green slopes and rocky walls and 
stately pinnacles and luxuriant acres. Twenty miles 
south of the Maltese Cross, they topped a ridge of 
buttes and suddenly came upon what might well have 
seemed, in the hot mist of noonday, a billowy ocean, 
held by some magic in suspension. From the trail, 
which wound along a red slope of baked clay falling 
at a sharp angle into a witch's cauldron of clefts 
and savage abysses, the Bad Lands stretched south- 
ward to the uncertain horizon. The nearer slopes 
were like yellow shores jutting into lavender waters. 

West of Middle Butte, that loomed like a purple 
island on their left, they took a short cut across the 
big Ox Bow from the mouth of Bullion Creek on the 



GREGOR LANG 19 

one side to the mouth of Spring Creek on the other, 
then followed the course of the Little Missouri 
southward once more. They met the old Fort Keogh 
trail where it crossed the river by the ruins of the 
stage station, and for three or four miles followed its 
deep ruts westward, then turned south again. They 
came at last to a crossing where the sunset glowed 
bright in their faces along the bed of a shallow creek 
that emptied into the Little Missouri. The creek 
was the Little Cannonball. In a cluster of hoary 
cottonwoods, fifty yards from the point where creek 
and river met, they found Lang's cabin. 

Lang turned out to be stocky, blue-eyed, and 
aggressively Scotch, wearing spectacles and a pair 
of " mutton-chop " whiskers. He had himself just 
arrived, having come from town by the longer 
trail over the prairie to the west in order to avoid 
the uncertain river crossings which had a way of 
proving fatal to a heavily laden wagon. His wel- 
come was hearty. With him was a boy of sixteen, 
fair-haired and blue-eyed, whom he introduced as 
his son Lincoln. The boy remembered ever after 
the earnestness of the tenderfoot's "Delighted to 
meet you." 

Roosevelt talked with Gregor Lang until mid- 
night. The Scotchman was a man of education 
with views of his own on life and politics, and if he 
was more than a little dogmatic, he was unquestion- 
ably sincere. 

He had an interesting story to tell. A year or 



20 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

less ago Henry Gorringe, Abram S. Hewitt, of New 
York, and a noted London financier named Sir 
John Pender, who had been instrumental in laying 
the first successful Atlantic cable, had, in the course 
of a journey through the Northwest, become inter- 
ested in the cattle business and, in May, 1883, 
bought the Cantonment buildings at Little Missouri 
with th,e object of making them the headquarters 
of a trading corporation which they called the 
Little Missouri Land and Stock Company. The 
details they left to the enterprising naval officer 
who had proposed the scheme. Gorringe had mean- 
while struck up a friendship with Frank Vine. This 
was not unnatural, for Frank was the social center 
of Little Missouri and was immensely popular. 
What is almost incredible, however, is that, blinded 
evidently by Frank's social graces, he took the genial 
and slippery post-trader into the syndicate, and 
appointed him superintendent. It was possibly be- 
cause he did not concur altogether in this selection 
that Pender sent Gregor Lang, who, owing to Lady 
Pender's scruples, was without employment, to re- 
port to Gorringe in New York and then proceed to 
Little Missouri. 

What a somewhat precise Scotch Presbyterian 
thought of that gathering-place of the wicked, 
the Presbyterian himself did not see fit to divulge. 
He established himself at the Cantonment, set to 
work with European thoroughness to find out all 
there was to find out about the cattle business, and 
quietly studied the ways of Frank Vine. Those 



THE VINE FAMILY 21 

ways were altogether extraordinary. Where he 
had originally come from no one exactly knew. His 
father, whom the new superintendent promptly 
established as manager of the Pyramid Park 
Hotel, had been a Missouri steamboat captain and 
was regarded far and wide as a terror. He was, in 
fact, a walking arsenal. He had a way of collecting 
his bills with a cavalry saber, and once, during the 
course of a " spree," hearing that a great Irishman 
named Jack Sawyer had beaten up his son Frank, 
was seen emerging from the hotel in search of the 
oppressor of his offspring with a butcher-knife in 
his boot, a six-shooter at his belt, and a rifle in his 
hand. Frank himself was less of a buccaneer and 
was conspicuous because he was practically the only 
man in Little Missouri who did not carry arms. He 
was big-hearted and not without charm in his non- 
chalant disregard of the moralities, but there was 
no truth in him, and he was so foul-mouthed that he 
became the model for the youth of Little Missouri, 
the ideal of what a foul-mouthed reprobate should 
be. 

" Frank was the darndest liar you ever knew," 
remarked, long after, a man who had authority on 
his side. " And, by jinx, if he wouldn't preface his 
worst lies with ' Now this is God's truth!' " 

He had an older brother named Darius who was 
famous as " the champion beer-drinker of the 
West," having the engaging gift of being able to 
consume untold quantities without ever becoming 
drunk. In their way they were a notable family. 



22 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Gregor Lang, with the fortunes of his employer 
at heart, watched Frank's activities as storekeeper 
with interest. During the mihtary regime, Frank 
had been post-trader, a berth which was an eminent 
article of barter on the shelves of congressional 
politicians and for which fitness seemed to consist 
in the ability to fill lonely soldiers with untold quan- 
tities of bad whiskey. Frank's " fitness," as the 
term was understood, was above question, but his 
bookkeeping, Lang found, was largely in his mind. 
When he received a shipment of goods he set the 
selling-price by multiplying the cost by tw^o and 
adding the freight; which saved much calculating. 
Frank's notions of " mine " and " thine," Lang 
discovered, moreover, were elastic. His depreda- 
tions were particularly heavy against a certain 
shipment of patent medicine called " Tolu Tonic," 
which he ordered in huge quantities at the com- 
pany's expense and drank up himself. The secret 
was that Frank, who had inherited his father's 
proclivities, did not like the " Forty-Mile Red Eye " 
brand which Bill Williams concocted of sulphuric 
acid and cigar stumps mixed with evil gin and 
worse rum; and had found that "Tolu Tonic" 
was eighty per cent alcohol. 

Seeing these matters, and other matters for which 
the term " irregularity " would have been only 
mildly descriptive, Gregor Lang sent Sir John a 
report which was not favorable to Frank Vine's 
regime. Sir John withdrew from the syndicate in 
disgust and ordered Lang to start a separate ranch 



THE BUFFALO HUNT 23 

for him; and Gorringe himself began to investigate 
the interesting ways of his superintendent. Why 
Lang was not murdered, he himself was unable to 
say. 

Lang had made it his business to acquire all the 
information he could secure on every phase of the 
cattle industry, for Sir John was avid of statistics. 
Roosevelt asked question after question. The 
Scotchman answered them. Joe Ferris, Lincoln, 
and a bony Scotch Highlander named MacRossie, 
who lived with the Langs, had been asleep and snor- 
ing for three hours before Gregor Lang and his guest 
finally sought their bunks. 

It was raining when they awoke next morning. 
Joe Ferris, who was willing to suffer discomfort in 
a good cause, but saw no reason for unnecessarily 
courting misery, suggested to Roosevelt that they 
wait until the weather cleared. Roosevelt insisted 
that they start the hunt. Joe recognized that he was 
dealing with a man who meant business, and made 
no further protest. 

They left Lang's at six, crossing the Little Mis- 
souri and threading their way, mile after mile, 
eastward through narrow defiles and along tortuous 
divides. It was a wild region, bleak and terrible, 
where fantastic devil-carvings reared themselves 
from the sallow gray of eroded slopes, and the only 
green things were gnarled cedars that looked as 
though they had been born in horror and had 
grown up in whirlwinds. 

The ground underfoot was wet and sticky; the 



24 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

rain continued all day long. Once, at a distance, 
they saw two or three blacktail deer, and a little 
later they came upon a single buck. They crept 
to within two hundred yards. Roosevelt fired, and 
missed. There was every reason why he should 
miss, for the distance was great and the rain made a 
clear aim impossible; but it happened that, as the 
deer bounded away, Joe Ferris fired at a venture, 
and brought him down. It was a shot in a thousand. 

Roosevelt flung his gun on the ground. " By 
Godfrey! " he exclaimed. "I'd give anything in 
the world if I could shoot like that! " 

His rage at himself was so evident that Joe, being 
tender-hearted, was almost sorry that he had shot 
so well. 

They found no buffalo that day; and returned to 
Lang's after dusk, gumbo mud to the eyes. 

Of the two, Ferris was the one, it happened, who 
wrapped himself in his buffalo robe immediately 
after supper and went to sleep. Roosevelt, ap- 
parently as fresh and vigorous as he had been when 
he started out in the morning, promptly set Gregor 
Lang to talking about cattle. 

Lang, who had been starved for intellectual 
companionship, was glad to talk; and there was 
much to tell. It was a new country for cattle. Less 
than five years before, the Indians had still roamed 
free and unmolested over it. A few daring white 
hunters (carrying each his vial of poison with which 
to cheat the torture-stake, in case of capture) 
had invaded their hunting-grounds; then a few 



THE ARGONAUTS 25 

surveyors ; then grading crews under military guard 
with their retinue of saloon-keepers and professional 
gamblers; then the gleaming rails; then the 
thundering and shrieking engines. Eastern sports- 
men, finding game plentiful in the Bad Lands, 
came to the conclusion that where game could sur- 
vive in winter and thrive in summer, cattle could do 
likewise, and began to send short-horned stock west 
over the railroad. A man named Wadsworth from 
Minnesota settled twenty miles down the river from 
Little Missouri; another named Simpson from 
Texas established the " Hash-Knife " brand sixty 
or seventy miles above. The Eatons and A. D. 
Huidekoper, all from Pittsburgh, Sir John Pender 
from England, Lord Nugent from Ireland, H. H. 
Gorringe from New York, came to hunt and re- 
mained in person or by proxy to raise cattle in the 
new-won prairies of western Dakota and eastern 
Montana. These were the first wave. Henry Boice 
from New Mexico, Gregor Lang from Scotland, 
Antoine de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Mores (very 
much from France) — these were the second ; 
young men all, most under thirty, some under 
tv\^enty-five, dare-devil adventurers with hot blood, 
seeing visions. 

Roosevelt and Lang talked well into the night. 
The next morning it was still raining. Roosevelt 
declared that he would hunt, anyway. Joe pro- 
tested, almost pathetically. Roosevelt was ob- 
durate, and Joe, admiring the " tenderfoot " in 
spite of himself, submitted. They hunted all day 



26 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and shot nothing, returning to the cabin after dark, 
covered with Dakota mud. 

Again it was Joe who tumbled into his corner, 
and the " tenderfoot " who, after supper, fresh as 
a daisy, engaged his host in conversation. They 
talked cattle and America and politics; and again, 
cattle. The emphatic Scotchman was very much 
of an individual. The eyes behind the oval glasses 
were alert, intelligent, and not without a touch of 
defiance. 

Gregor Lang was one of those Europeans to whom 
America comes as a great dream, long before they 
set foot on its soil. He felt sharply the appeal of 
free institutions, and had proved ready to fight and 
to suffer for his convictions. He had had consider- 
able opportunity to do both, for he had been an 
enthusiastic liberal in an arch-conservative family, 
frankly expressing his distaste for any form of 
government, including the British, which admitted 
class distinctions and gave to the few at the expense 
of the many. His insistence on naming his son 
after the man who had been indirectly responsible 
for the closing of England's cotton-mills had almost 
disrupted his household. 

He enjoyed talking politics, and found in Roose- 
velt, who was up to his eyes in politics in his own 
State, a companion to delight his soul. Lang was 
himself a good talker and not given as a rule to 
patient listening; but he listened to Theodore 
Roosevelt, somewhat because he wanted to, and 
somewhat because it was difficult for any one to do 



POLITICS 27 

anything else in those days when Roosevelt once 
took the floor. Gregor Lang had known many re- 
formers in his time, and some had been precise and 
meticulous and some had been fiery and eloquent, 
but none had possessed the overwhelming passion 
for public service that seemed to burn in this 
amazingly vigorous and gay-spirited American of 
twenty-four. Roosevelt denounced " boss rule " 
until the rafters rang, coupling his denunciation of 
corrupt politicians with denunciations of those 
" fireside moralists " who were forever crying 
against bad government yet raising not a finger to 
correct it. The honest were always in a majority, 
he contended, and, under the American Constitu- 
tion, held in their hands the power to overcome the 
dishonest minority. It was the solemn duty of 
every American citizen, he declared, not only to 
vote, but to fight, if need be, for good government. 

It was two in the morning before Gregor Lang 
and Theodore Roosevelt reluctantly retired to their 
bunks. 

Roosevelt was up and about at dawn. It was 
still raining. Joe Ferris suggested mildly that they 
wait for better weather before plunging again into 
the sea of gumbo mud, but Roosevelt, who had 
not come to Dakota to twiddle his thumbs, insisted 
that they resume their hunt. They went and found 
nothing. The rain continued for a week. 

" He nearly killed poor Joe," Lincoln remarked 
afterwards. " He would not stop for anything." 

Every morning Joe entered his protest and 



28 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt overruled it, and every evening Joe 
rolled, nigh dead, into his buffalo robe and Roosevelt 
talked cattle and politics with Gregor Lang until one 
and two in the morning. Joe and the Highlander 
sawed wood, but the boy Lincoln in his bunk lay 
with wide eyes. 

" It was in listening to those talks after supper 
in the old shack on the Cannonball," he said, a 
long time after, " that I first came to understand 
that the Lord made the earth for all of us and not 
for a chosen few." 

Roosevelt, too, received inspiration from these 
nocturnal discussions, but it was an inspiration of 
another sort. 

** Mr. Lang," he said suddenly one evening, " I 
am thinking seriously of going into the cattle 
business. Would you advise me to go into it? " 

Gregor Lang was cautious. " I don't like to ad- 
vise you in a matter of that kind," he answered. 
" I myself am prepared to follow it out to the end. 
I have every faith in it. If it's a question of my 
faith, I have full faith. As a business proposition, 
it is the best there is." 

They said no more about the matter that night. 

The weather cleared at last. Joe Ferris, who had 
started on the hunt with misgivings, had no mis- 
givings whatever now. He confided in Lincoln, not 
without a touch of pride in his new acquaintance, 
that this was a new variety of tenderfoot, altogether 
a " plumb good sort." 

They started out with new zest under the clear 



THE PASSING OF THE BUFFALO 29 

sky. They had, in their week's hunting, come 
across the fresh tracks of numerous buffalo, but 
had in no case secured a shot. The last great herd 
had, in fact, been exterminated six months before, 
and though the Ferrises and Merrifield had killed 
a half-dozen within a quarter-mile of the Maltese 
Cross early that summer, these had been merely a 
straggling remnant. The days when a hunter could 
stand and bombard a dull, panic-stricken herd, 
slaughtering hundreds without changing his posi- 
tion, were gone. In the spring of 1883 the buffalo 
had still roamed the prairies east and west of the 
Bad Lands in huge herds, but moving in herds 
they were as easy to shoot as a family cow and the 
profits even at three dollars a pelt were great. 
Game-butchers swarmed forth from Little Missouri 
and fifty other frontier " towns," slaughtering buf- 
falo for their skins or for their tongues or for the 
mere lust of killing. The hides were piled high at 
every shipping point; the carcasses rotted in the 
sun. Three hundred thousand buffalo, driven north 
from the more settled plains of western Nebraska, 
and huddled in a territory covering not more than 
a hundred and fifty square miles, perished like 
cattle in a stockyard, almost overnight. It was 
one of the most stupendous and dramatic obliter- 
ations in history of a species betrayed by the sud- 
den change of its environment. 

Hunting buffalo on horseback had, even in the 
days of the great herds, been an altogether different 
matter from the methodical slaughter from a 



30 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" stand," where a robe for every cartridge was not 
an unusual " bag," and where an experienced game- 
butcher could, without recourse to Baron Munch- 
ausen, boast an average of eighty per cent of 
" kills." There was always the possibility that the 
bison, driven to bay, might charge the sportsman 
who drove his horse close in for a sure shot. With 
the great herds destroyed, there was added to 
the danger and the privations of the wild country 
where the few remaining stragglers might be found, 
the zest and the arduousness of long searching. 
Roosevelt and Joe Ferris had had their full share of 
the latter. 

They came on the fresh track of a buffalo two 
hours after their departure, that clear warm morn- 
ing, from Lang's hospitable cabin. It was, for a 
time, easy to follow, where it crossed and recrossed 
a narrow creek-bottom, but became almost un- 
discernible as it struck off up the side of a winding 
coulee, where the soil, soaked as it had been by a 
week of September drizzle, was already baked hard 
by the hot sun. They rode for an hour cautiously 
up the ravine. Suddenly, as they passed the mouth 
of a side coulee, there was a plunge and crackle 
through the bushes at its head, and a shabby- 
looking old bull bison galloped out of it and plunged 
over a steep bank into a patch of broken ground 
which led around the base of a high butte. The 
bison was out of sight before they had time to fire. 
At the risk of their necks they sped their horses over 
the broken ground only to see the buffalo emerge 



PURSUIT 31 

from it at the farther end and with amazing agility 
climb up the side of a butte over a quarter of a mile 
away. With his shaggy mane and huge forequarters 
he had some of the impressiveness of a lion as he 
stood for an instant looking back at his pursuers. 
They followed him for miles, but caught no glimpse 
of him again. 

They were now on the prairie far to the east of 
the river, a steaming, treeless region stretching in 
faint undulations north, east, and south, until it 
met the sky in the blurred distance. Here and 
there it was broken by a sunken water-course, dry 
in spite of a week of wet weather, or a low bluff 
or a cluster of small, round-topped buttes. The 
gr'ass was burnt brown; the air was hot and still. 
The country had the monotony and the melancholy 
and more than a little of the beauty and the fascina- 
tion of the sea. 

They ate their meager lunch beside a miry pool, 
where a clump of cedars under a bluff gave a few 
square feet of shadow. 

All afternoon they rode over the dreary prairie, 
but it was late before they caught another glimpse of 
game. Then, far off in the middle of a large plain, 
they saw three black specks. 

The horses were slow beasts, and were tired be- 
sides and in no condition for running. Roosevelt 
and his mentor picketed them in a hollow, half a 
mile from the game, and started off on their hands 
and knees. Roosevelt blundered into a bed of 
cactus and filled his hands with the spines; but he 



32 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

came within a hundred and fifty feet or less of the 
buffalo. He drew up and fired. The bullet made the 
dust fly from the hide as it hit the body with a loud 
crack, but apparently did no particular harm. The 
three buffalo made off over a low rise with their tails 
in the air. 

The hunters returned to their horses in disgust, 
and for seven or eight miles loped the jaded animals 
along at a brisk pace. Now and again they saw 
the quarry far ahead. Finally, when the sun had 
just set, they saw that all three had come to a 
stand in a gentle hollow. There was no cover any- 
where. They determined, as a last desperate resort, 
to try to run them on their worn-out ponies. 

The bison faced them for an instant, then turned 
and made off. With spurs and quirt, Roosevelt 
urged his tired pony forward. Night closed in 
and the full moon rose out of the black haze on the 
horizon. The pony plunged to within sixty or 
seventy yards of the wounded bull, and could gain 
no more. Joe Ferris, better mounted, forged ahead. 
The bull, seeing him coming, swerved. Roosevelt 
cut across and came almost up to him. The ground 
over which they were running was broken into holes 
and ditches, and the fagged horses floundered and 
pitched forward at every step. 

At twenty feet, Roosevelt fired, but the pony 
was pitching like a launch in a storm, and he missed. 
He dashed in closer. 

The bull's tail went up and he wheeled suddenly 
and charged with lowered horns. 




THE PRAIRIE AT THE EDGE OF THE BAD LANDS 




• BROKEN COU.N IRV 



i 



THE CHARGE OF THE BUFFALO 33 

The pony, panic-stricken, spun round and tossed 
up his head, striking the rifle which Roosevelt was 
holding in both hands and knocking it violently 
against his forehead, cutting a deep gash. The 
blood poured into Roosevelt's eyes. 

Ferris reined in his pony. " All right? " he called, 
evidently frightened. 

" Don't mind me! " Roosevelt shouted, without 
turning an instant from the business in hand. "I'm 
all right." 

For an instant it was a question whether Roose- 
velt would get the buffalo or the buffalo would get 
Roosevelt. But he swerved his horse, and the 
buffalo, plunging past, charged Ferris and followed 
him as he made off over the broken ground, un- 
comfortably close to the tired pony's tail. Roose- 
velt, half-blinded, tried to run in on him again, but 
his pony stopped, dead beat; and by no spurring 
could he force him out of a slow trot. Ferris, 
swerving suddenly and dismounting, fired, but the 
dim moonlight made accurate aim impossible, and 
the buffalo, to the utter chagrin of the hunters, 
lumbered off and vanished into the darkness. 
Roosevelt followed him for a short space afoot in 
hopeless and helpless wrath. 

There was no possibility of returning to Lang's 
that night. They were not at all certain where 
they were, but they knew they were a long way 
from the mouth of the Little Cannonball. They 
determined to camp near by for the night. 

They did not mount the exhausted horses, but 



34 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

led them, stumbling, foaming and sweating, while 
they hunted for water. It was an hour before they 
found a little mud-pool in a reedy hollow. They 
had drunk nothing for twelve hours and were 
parched with thirst, but the water of the pool 
was like thin jelly, slimy and nauseating, and they 
could drink only a mouthful. Supper consisted of 
a dry biscuit, previously baked by Lincoln under 
direction of his father, who insisted that the use of 
a certain kind of grease whose name is lost to his- 
tory would keep the biscuits soft. They were hard 
as horn.^ There was not a twig with which to 
make a fire, nor a bush to which they could fasten 
their horses. When they lay down to sleep, thirsty 
and famished, they had to tie their horses with 
the lariat to the saddles which were their pillows. 

They did not go quickly to sleep. The horses 
were nervous, restless, alert, in spite of their fatigue, 
continually snorting or standing with their ears 
forward, peering out into the night, as though 
conscious of the presence of danger. Roosevelt 
remembered some half-breed Crees they had en- 
countered the day before. It was quite possible 
that some roving bucks might come for their horses, 

1 "I would start to make biscuits and as usual go about putting 
shortening into them, which father didn't like. We'd argue over it 
a little, and I would say, 'Good biscuits can't be made without 
grease.' Then he'd say, 'Well, use elbow grease.' I'd say then, 'Well, 
all right, I'll try it.' Then I'd go to work and knead the dough hard 
(on purpose), understanding, of course, that kneading utterly spoils 
biscuit dough, whether there is shortening in it or not. The result is 
a pan of adamantine biscuits which, of course, I blame on him." — 
Lincoln Lang. 



BROKEN SLUMBERS 35 

and perhaps their scalps, for the Indians, who were 
still unsettled on their reservations, had a way of 
stealing off whenever they found a chance and doing 
what damage they could. Stories he had heard of 
various bands of horse-thieves that operated in 
the region between the Little Missouri and the 
Black Hills likewise returned to mind to plague him. 
The wilderness in which Roosevelt and Ferris had 
pitched their meager camp was in the very heart 
of the region infested by the bandits. They dozed 
fitfully, waking with a start whenever the sound 
of the grazing of the horses ceased for a moment, 
and they knew that the nervous animals were 
watching for the approach of a foe. It was late 
when at last they fell asleep. 

They were rudely wakened at midnight by having 
their pillows whipped out from under their heads. 
They leapt to their feet. In the bright moonlight 
they saw the horses madly galloping off, with the 
saddles bounding and trailing behind them. Their 
first thought was that the horses had been stam- 
peded by horse-thieves, and they threw themselves 
on the ground, crouching in the long grass with 
rifles ready. 

There was no stir. At last, in the hollow they 
made out a shadowy, four-footed shape. It was a 
wolf who strode noiselessly to the low crest and 
disappeared. 

They rose and went after the horses, taking the 
broad trail made by the saddles through the dewy 
grass. 



36 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Once Joe Ferris stopped. " Say, I ain't ever 
committed any crime deservin' that anything like 
this should happen! " he exclaimed plaintively. 
Then, turning straight to Roosevelt, evidently 
suspecting that he had a Jonah on his hands, he 
cried, in a voice in which wrath was mingled with 
comic despair, " Have you ever done anything to 
deserve this? " 

" Joe," Roosevelt answered solemnly, " I never 
have." 

" Then I can't understand," Joe remarked, " why 
we're runnin' in such luck." 

Roosevelt grinned at him and chuckled, and Joe 
Ferris grinned and chuckled; and after that the 
savage attentions of an unkind fate did not seem 
so bad. 

They found the horses sooner than they expected 
and led them back to camp. Utterly weary, they 
wrapped themselves in their blankets once more 
and went to sleep. But rest was not for them that 
night. At three in the morning a thin rain began 
to fall, and they awoke to find themselves lying in 
four inches of water. Joe Ferris expected lamenta- 
tions. What he heard was, " By Godfrey, but this 
is fun!" 

They cowered and shivered under their blankets 
until dawn. Then, soaked to the skin, they made 
breakfast of Lang's adamantine biscuits, mounted 
their horses, and were off, glad to bid good-bye to 
the inhospitable pool. 

A fine, drizzling mist, punctuated at intervals 



FAILURE 37 

by heavy downpours of rain, shrouded the desolate 
region and gathered them into a chilly desolation 
of its own. They traveled by compass. It was 
only after hours that the mist lifted, revealing" the 
world about them, and, in the center of it, several 
black objects slowly crossing a piece of rolling 
country ahead. They were buffalo. 

They picketed the horses, and crept forward on 
their hands and knees through the soft, muddy 
prairie soil. A shower of cold rain blew up-wind 
straight in their faces and made the teeth chatter 
behind their blue lips. The rain was blowing in 
Roosevelt's eyes as he pulled the trigger. He 
missed clean, and the whole band plunged into a 
hollow and were off. 

What Joe Ferris said upon that occasion remains 
untold. It was " one of those misses," Roosevelt 
himself remarked afterwards, " which a man to his 
dying day always looks back upon with wonder 
and regret." In wet, sullen misery he returned 
with Joe to the horses. 

The rain continued all day, and they spent 
another wretched night. They had lived for two 
days on nothing but biscuits and rainwater, and 
privation had thoroughly lost whatever charm it 
might have had for an adventurous young man in 
search of experience. The next morning brought 
sunlight and revived spirits, but it brought no 
change in their luck. 

" Bad luck followed us," Joe Ferris remarked 
long after, " like a yellow dog follows a drunkard." 



38 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Joe's horse nearly stepped on a rattlesnake, and 
narrowly escaped being bitten; a steep bluff broke 
away under their ponies' hoofs, and sent them 
sliding and rolling to the bottom of a long slope, 
a pile of intermingled horses and men. Shortly 
after, Roosevelt's horse stepped into a hole and 
turned a complete somersault, pitching his rider 
a good ten feet; and he had scarcely recovered his 
composure and his seat in the saddle, when the 
earth gave way under his horse as though he had 
stepped on a trap-door, and let him down to his 
withers in soft, sticky mud. They hauled the 
frightened animal out by the lariat, with infinite 
labor. Altogether it was not a restful Sunday. 

More than once Joe Ferris looked at Roosevelt 
quizzically, wondering when the pleasant " four- 
eyed tenderfoot " would begin to worry about 
catching cold and admit at last that the game was 
too much for him. But the " tenderfoot," it hap- 
pened, had a dogged streak. He made no sugges- 
tion of " quitting." 

" He could stand an awful lot of hard knocks," 
Joe explained later, " and he was always cheerful. 
You just couldn't knock him out of sorts. He was 
entertaining, too, and I liked to listen to him, 
though, on the whole, he wasn't much on the talk. 
He said that he wanted to get away from politics, 
so I didn't mention political matters; and he had 
books with him and would read at odd times." 

Joe began to look upon his " tenderfoot " with 
a kind of awe, which was not diminished when 



IT'S DOGGED THAT DOES IT 39 

Roosevelt, blowing up a rubber pillow which he 
carried with him, casually remarked one night that 
his doctors back East had told him that he did not 
have much longer to live, and that violent exercise 
would be immediately fatal. 

They returned to Lang's, Roosevelt remarking 
to himself that it was " dogged that does it," and 
ready to hunt three weeks if necessary to get his 
buffalo. 

If Lang had any notion that the privations of 
the hunt had dampened Roosevelt's enthusiasm for 
the frontier, Roosevelt himself speedily dispelled it. 

Roosevelt had, for a year or more, felt the itch 
to be a monarch of acres. He had bought land at 
Oyster Bay, including an elevation known to the 
neighbors as Sagamore Hill, where he was building 
a house; but a view and a few acres of woodland 
could not satisfy his craving. He wanted expanses 
to play with, large works to plan and execute, 
subordinates to inspire and to direct. He had 
driven his uncles, who were as intensely practical 
and thrifty as Dutch uncles should be, and his 
sisters, wh,o were, at least, very much more practical 
in money matters than he was, nearly frantic the 
preceding summer by declaring his intention to 
purchase a large farm adjoining the estate of his 
brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, in the Mohawk 
Valley; for his kin knew, what he himself failed to 
recognize, that he was not made to be a farmer 
and that he who loved to be in the center of the 
seething world would explode, or burn himself out, 



40 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

in a countryside a night's run from anywhere. 
They knew also that farming was not a spiritual 
adventure, but a business, and that Theodore, with 
his generous habit of giving away a few thousands 
here and a few thousands there, was not exactly 
a business man. He had yielded to their abjura- 
tions; but his hankering for acres had remained. 

Here in Dakota were all the acres that any man 
could want, and they were his for the asking. 

To this vague craving to be monarch of all he 
surveyed (or nearly all), another emotion which 
Roosevelt might have identified with business 
acumen had during the past year been added. To- 
gether with a Harvard classmate, Richard Trimble, 
he had become interested in a ranching project 
known as the Teschmaker and Debillier Cattle 
Company, which "ran" some thousands of head of 
cattle fifty or sixty miles north of Cheyenne; and 
he had invested ten thousand dollars in it. Com- 
mander Gorringe, seeking to finance the enterprise 
in which he was involved, in the course of his 
hunting accounts doubtlessly spoke glowingly to 
Roosevelt of the huge profits that awaited Eastern 
dollars in the Bad Lands. Roosevelt, it appears, 
asked his uncle, James Roosevelt, his father's elder 
brother and head of the banking firm of Roosevelt 
and Son, whether he would advise him to invest a 
further sum of five thousand dollars in cattle in 
Dakota. 

Uncle James, to whom, as investments, cattle 
ranches were in a class with gold mines, emphati- 



ROOSEVELT MAKES A DECISION 41 

cally informed Theodore that he would not at all 
advise him to do anything of the kind. How 
deeply Roosevelt was impressed by this information 
subsequent events clearly indicate. 

Roosevelt and Lang sat at the table long after 
Lincoln had cleared it that night. Joe and the 
Highlander were asleep, but Lincoln heard the two 
men talking and, years after, remembered thp 
conversation of that momentous September night. 

" Mr. Lang," said Roosevelt abruptly, " I have 
definitely decided to go into the cattle business. 
I want somebody to run cattle for me on shares 
or to take the management of my cattle under 
some arrangement to be worked out. Will you 
take charge of my cattle? " 

The Scotchman, who was naturally deliberate, 
was not prepared to meet such precipitancy. He 
told Roosevelt that he appreciated his offer. " Un- 
fortunately," he added reluctantly, " I am tied up 
with the other people." 

Roosevelt's regret was evident. He asked Lang 
whether there was any one he would recommend. 
Without hesitation, Lang suggested Sylvane Ferris 
and Bill Merrifield. Early the next morning Lincoln 
Lang was dispatched to the Maltese Cross. 

Meanwhile Roosevelt and Joe continued the pur- 
suit of the elusive buffalo. But again luck was far 
from them. For two days they hunted in vain. 
When they returned to Lang's the second dusk, 
Sylvane and Merrifield were there waiting for them. 

That evening, after supper, Roosevelt sat on a 



42 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

log outside Lang's cabin with the two ranchmen and 
asked them how much in their opinion it would 
cost adequately to stock a cattle-ranch. 

" Depends what you want to do," answered 
Sylvane. " But my guess is, if you want to do it 
right, that it'll spoil the looks of forty thousand 
dollars." 

" How much would you need right off? " Roose- 
velt went on. 

" Oh, a third would make a start." 

" Could you boys handle the cattle for me? " 

" Why, yes," said Sylvane in his pleasant, quiet 
drawl, " I guess we could take care of 'em 'bout as 
well as the next man." 

" Why, I guess sol " ejaculated Merrifield. 

" Well, will you do it? " 

" Now, that's another story," said Sylvane. 
" Merrifield here and me is under contract with 
Wadsworth and Halley. We've got a bunch of 
cattle with them on shares. I guess we'd like to do 
business with, you right enough, Mr. Roosevelt, but 
there's nothing we can do until Wadsworth and 
Halley releases us." 

" I'll buy those cattle." 

" All right," remarked Sylvane. " Then the best 
thing for us to do is to go to Minnesota an' see 
those men an' get released from our contract. When 
that's fixed up, we can make any arrangements 
you've a mind to." 

" That will suit me." 

Roosevelt drew a checkbook from his pocket, 



HE ACQUIRES TWO PARTNERS 43 

and there, sitting on the log (oh, vision of Uncle 
James!) wrote a check, not for the contemplated 
five thousand dollars, but for fourteen, and handed 
it to Sylvane. Merrifield and Sylvane, he directed, 
were to purchase a few hundred head of cattle 
that fall in addition to the hundred and fifty head 
which they held on shares for Wadsworth. 

" Don't you want a receipt? " asked Merrifield 
at last. 

" Oh, that's all right," said Roosevelt. " If I 
didn't trust you men, I wouldn't go into business 
with you." 

They shook hands all around; whereupon they 
dropped the subject from conversation and talked 
about game. 

" We were sitting on a log." said Merrifield, many 
years later, "up at what we called Cannonball 
Creek. He handed us a check for fourteen thousand 
dollars, handed it right over to us on a verbal 
contract. He didn't have a scratch of a pen for it." 

" All the security he had for his money," added 
Sylvane, " was our honesty." 

The man from the East, with more than ordinary 
ability to read the faces of men, evidently thought 
that that was quite enough. 

The next dawn Roosevelt did not go hunting as 
usual. All morning he sat over the table in the 
cabin with Lang and the two Canadians laboring 
over the contract which three of them were to sign 
in case his prospective partners were released from 
the obligation which for the time bound them. It 



44 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

was determined that Ferris and Merrifield should go 
at once to Minnesota to confer with Wadsworth 
and Halley. Roosevelt, meanwhile, would continue 
his buffalo hunt, remaining in the Bad Lands until 
he received word that the boys from the Maltese 
Cross were in a position to ** complete the deal." 
The wheels of the new venture having thus, in de- 
fiance of Uncle James, been set in motion, Roosevelt 
parted from his new friends, and resumed the in- 
terrupted chase. 

The red gods must have looked with favor on 
Roosevelt's adventurous spirit, for luck turned 
suddenly in his favor. Next morning he was 
skirting a ridge of broken buttes with Joe Ferris, 
near the upper waters of the Little Cannonball west 
of Lang's camp over the Montana line, when sud- 
denly both ponies threw up their heads and snuffed 
the air, turning their muzzles toward a coulee that 
sloped gently toward the creek-bottom they were 
traversing. Roosevelt slipped off his pony and ran 
quickly but cautiously up the side of the ravine. In 
the soft soil at the bottom he saw the round prints 
of a bison's. hoof. 

He came upon the buffalo an instant later, grazing 
slowly up the valley. Both wind and shelter were 
good, and he ran close. The bull threw back his 
head and cocked his tail in the air. 

Joe Ferris, who had followed close at Roosevelt's 
heels, pointed out a yellow spot on the buffalo, just 
back of the shoulder. " If you hit him there," he 
whispered, " you'll get him right through the heart." 



HE KILLS HIS BUFFALO 45 

It seemed to Joe that the Easterner was extra- 
ordinarily cool, as he aimed deliberately and fired. 
With amazing agility the buffalo bounded up the 
opposite side of the ravine, seemingly heedless of two 
more bullets aimed at his flank. 

Joe was ready to throw up his hands in despair. 
But suddenly they saw blood pouring from the 
bison's mouth and nostrils. The great bull rushed 
to the ridge at a lumbering gallop, and disappeared. 

They found him lying in the next gully, 'dead, 'as 
Joe Ferris remarked, " as Methusalem's cat." 

Roosevelt, with all his intellectual maturity, was 
a good deal of a boy, and the Indian war-dance he 
executed around the prostrate buffalo left nothing 
in the way of delight unexpressed. Joe watched 
the performance open-mouthed. 

" I never saw any one so enthused in my life," 
he said in after days, " and, by golly, I was enthused 
myself for more reasons than one. I was plumb 
tired out, and, besides, he was so eager to shoot 
his first buffalo that it somehow got into my blood; 
and I wanted to see him kill his first one as badly as 
he wanted to kill it." 

Roosevelt, out of the gladness of his heart, then 
and there presented him with a hundred dollars; so 
there was another reason for Joe to be happy. 

They returned to Lang's, chanting pseans of 
victory. Early next day Roosevelt returned with 
Joe to the place where they had left the buffalo and 
with endless labor skinned the huge beast and 
brought the head and slippery hide to camp. 



46 ROCSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The next morning Roosevelt took his departure. 

Gregor Lang watched the mounted figure ride off 
beside the rattUng buckboard. " He is the most 
extraordinary man I have ever met," he said to 
Lincoln. " I shall be surprised if the world does not 
hear from him one of these days." 



Ill 

Some came for lungs, and some for jobs, 
And some for booze at Big-mouth Bob's, 
Some to punch cattle, some to shoot, 
Some for a vision, some for loot; 
Some for views and some for vice, 
Some for faro, some for dice; 
Some for the joy of a galloping hoof, 
Some for the prairie's spacious roof, 
Some to forget a face, a fan, 
Some to plumb the heart of man; 
Some to preach and some to blow, 
Some to grab and some to grow. 
Some in anger, some in pride. 
Some to taste, before they died. 
Life served hot and a la cartee — 
And some to dodge a necktie-party. 

From Medora Nights 

Roosevelt remained in Little Missouri to wait for 
news from Merrifield and Sylvane, who had departed 
for Minnesota a day or two previous. Possibly it 
occurred to him that a few days in what was said 
to be the worst " town " on the Northern Pacific 
might have their charm. 

Roosevelt was enough of a boy rather to relish 
things that were blood-curdling. Years after, a 
friend of Roosevelt's, who had himself committed 
almost every crime in the register, remarked; in 
commenting in a tone of injured morality on 
Roosevelt's frank regard for a certain desperate 
character, that '' Roosevelt had a weakness for 
murderers." The reproach has a delightful sugges- 
tiveness. Whether it was merited or not is a large 
question on which Roosevelt himself might have 



48 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

discoursed with emphasis and humor. If he actually 
did possess such a weakness, Little Missouri and 
the boom town were fully able to satisfy it. 

" Little Missouri was a terrible place," remarked, 
years after, a man who had had occasion to study it. 
It was, in fact, " wild and woolly " to an almost 
grotesque degree, and the boom town was if anything 
a little cruder than its twin across the river. The 
men who had drifted into Medora after the news 
was noised abroad that " a crazy Frenchman " was 
making ready to scatter millions there, were, many 
of them, outcasts of society, reckless, greedy, and 
conscienceless; fugitives from justice with criminal 
records, and gunmen who lived by crooked gambling 
and thievery of every sort. The best of those who 
had come that summer to seek adventure and 
fortune on the banks of the Little Missouri were 
men who cared little for their personal safety, 
courting danger wherever it beckoned, careless of 
life and limb, reticent of speech and swift of action, 
light-hearted and altogether human. They were 
the adventurous and unfettered spirits of hundreds 
of communities whom the restrictions of respectable 
society had galled. Here they were, elbowing each 
other in a little corner of sagebrush country where 
there was little to do and much whiskey to drink; 
and the hand of the law was light and far away. 

Somewhere, hundreds of miles to the south, there 
was a United States marshal ; somewhere a hundred 
and fifty miles to the east there was a sheriff. Neither 
Medora nor Little Missouri had any representative 




ROOSEVELT IN I 




MEDORA IN THE WINTER OF l{ 
The office and company-store of the Marquis de Mores 



JAKE MAUNDERS 49 

of the law whatsoever, no government or even a 
shadow of government. The feuds that arose were 
settled by the parties involved in the ancient manner 
of Cain. 

Of the heterogeneous aggregation of desperate 
men that made up the population of the frontier 
settlement, Jake Maunders, the man who had lent 
Roosevelt a hammer and a buffalo-gun, was, by all 
odds, the most prominent and the least trustworthy. 

He had been one of the first to settle at Little 
Missouri, and for a while had lived in the open as 
a hunter. But the influx of tourists and " floaters " 
had indicated to him a less arduous form of labor. 
He guided " tenderfeet," charging exorbitant rates; 
he gambled (cautiously) ; whenever a hunter left the 
Bad Lands, abandoning his shack, Maunders 
claimed it with the surrounding country, and, when 
a settler took up land near by, demanded five hun- 
dred dollars for his rights. A man whom he owed 
three thousand dollars had been opportunely kicked 
into oblivion by a horse in a manner that was 
mysterious to men who knew the ways of horses. 
He had shot MacNab, the Scotchman, in cold 
blood, as he came across the sagebrush flat from 
Bill Williams's saloon, kneeling at the corner of his 
shack with his rifle on his knee. Another murder 
was laid directly at his door. But the forces of law 
were remote from Little Missouri, and Jake 
Maunders not only lived, but flourished. 

His enemies said he was " the sneakiest man in 
town, always figuring on somebody else doing the 



50 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

dirty work for him, and him reap the benefits"; but 
his friends said that " once Jake was your friend, 
he was your friend, and that was all there was to 
it." The truth remains that the friends Jake chose 
were all characters only a little less shady than 
himself. 

Most prominent of these were the precious pair 
who " operated " Bill Williams's saloon. Bill 
Williams was a Welshman who had drifted into 
Little Missouri while the railroad was being built, 
and, recognizing that the men who made money in 
frontier settlements were the men who sold whiskey, 
had opened a saloon to serve liquid refreshment in 
various vicious forms to the grading crews and 
soldiers. 

" He always reminded me of a red fox," said Lin- 
coln Lang long after, "for, besides having a marked 
carroty complexion, there was a cunning leer in his 
face which seemed, as it were, to show indistinctly 
through the transparency of the manufactured grin 
with which he sought to cover it. When he got mad 
over something or other and swept the grin aside, I do 
not think that an uglier countenance ever existed on 
earth or in hell. He was rather short of stature, bul- 
let-headed and bull-necked, with a sloping forehead 
and a somewhat underslung chin. His nose was red 
and bulbous, his eyes narrow-set beneath bushy red 
eyebrows. He had a heavy red moustache not al- 
together concealing an abnormally long mouth, and 
through it at times, when he smiled, his teeth showed 
like fangs." 



THE BAD MEN 51 

He was a man of natural shrewdness, a money- 
maker, a gambler, and like Maunders (it was 
rumored) a brander of cattle that were not his. 
But he was not without a certain attractive quality, 
and when he was slightly drunk he was brilliant. 
He was deathly afraid of being alone, and had a 
habit on those infrequent occasions when his bar 
was for the moment deserted, of setting the chairs 
in orderly rows as in a chapel, and then preaching 
to them solemnly on the relative merits of King 
Solomon and Hiram, King of Tyre. 

His partner, Jess Hogue, was the brains of the 
nefarious trio, a dark, raw-boned brute with an ugly, 
square-jawed, domineering face, a bellow like a bull's, 
and all the crookedness of Bill Williams without his 
redeeming wit. His record of achievement covered 
a broader field than that of either of his associates, 
for it began with a sub-contract on the New York 
water system, involved him with the United States 
Government in connection with a certain "phan- 
tom mail route" between Bismarck and Miles City, 
and started him on the road to affluence with the 
acquisition of twenty-eight army mules which, with 
the aid of Bill Williams and the skillful use of the 
peculiar type of intelligence with which they both 
seemed to be endowed, he had secured at less than 
cost from Fort Abraham Lincoln at Mandan. 

Associated with Williams, Hogue, and Maunders, 
in their various ventures, was a man of thirty-eight 
or forty named Paddock, with florid cheeks, and a 
long, dark moustache and goatee that made him 



52 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

look something like Buffalo Bill and something like 
Simon Legree. He conducted the local livery-stable 
with much profit, for his rates were what was known 
to the trade as "fancy," and shared with Maunders 
whatever glory there was in being one of the most 
feared men in Little Missouri. Like Maunders, he 
had his defenders; and he had a pleasant-faced wife 
who gave mute tribute to a side of Jerry Paddock 
which he did not reveal to the world. 

The banks of the Little Missouri in those days of 
September, 1883, were no place for soft hands or 
faint hearts; and a place for women only who had 
the tough fiber of the men. There were scarcely a 
half-dozen of them in all the Bad Lands up and 
down the river. In Little Missouri there were four 
— Mrs. Roderick, who was the cook at the Pyramid 
Park Hotel ; Mrs. Paddock, wife of the livery-stable 
keeper; Mrs. Pete McGeeney who kept a boarding- 
house next to Johnny Nelson's store; and her neigh- 
bor and eternal enemy, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Pete 
McGeeney was a section-boss on the railroad, but 
what else he was, except the husband of Mrs. 
McGeeney, is obscure. He was mildly famous in 
Little Missouri because he had delirium tremens, 
and now and then when he went on a rampage had 
to be lassoed. Mrs. McGeeney's feud with Mrs. 
Fitzgerald was famous throughout the countryside. 
They lived within fifty feet of each other, which 
may have been the cause of the extreme bitterness 
between them, for they were both Irish and their 
tongues were sharp. 



ARCHIE THE PRECOCIOUS 53 

Little Missouri had, until now, known only one 
child, but that one had fully lived up to the best 
traditions of the community. It was Archie Maun- 
ders, his father's image and proudest achievement. 
At the age of twelve he held up Fitzgerald, the 
roadmaster, at the point of a pistol, and more than 
once delayed the departure of the Overland Express 
by shooting around the feet of the conductors. 

Whether he was still the waiter at the Pyramid 
Park Hotel when Roosevelt arrived there is dark, 
for it was sometime that autumn that a merciful 
God took Archie Maunders to him before he could 
grow into the fullness of his powers. He was only 
thirteen or fourteen years old when he died, but even 
the guidebook of the Northern Pacific had taken no- 
tice of him, recounting the retort courteous he had 
delivered on one occasion when he was serving the 
guests at the hotel. 

" Tea or coffee? " he asked one of the ** dudes " 
who had come in on the Overland. 

" I'll take tea, if you please," responded the ten- 
derfoot. 

" You blinkety blank son of a blank! " remarked 
Archie, ** you'll take coffee or I'll scald you! " 

The " dude " took coffee. 

His " lip " was, indeed, phenomenal, and one day 
when he aimed it at Darius Vine (who was not 
a difficult mark), that individual bestirred his two 
hundred and fifty pounds and set about to thrash 
him. Archie promptly drew his " six-shooter," and 
as Darius, who was not conspicuous for courage. 



54 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

fled toward the Cantonment, Archie followed, 
shooting about his ears and his heels. Darius 
reached his brother's store, nigh dead, just in time 
to slam the door in Archie's face. Archie shot 
through the panel and brought Darius down with 
a bullet in his leg. 

Archie's " gayety " with his " six-shooter " 
seemed to stir no emotion in his father except pride. 
But when Archie finally began to shoot at his own 
brother, Jake Maunders mildly protested. " Golly, 
golly," he exclaimed, " don't shoot at your brother. 
If you want to shoot at anybody, shoot at somebody 
outside the family." 

Whether or not the boy saw the reasonableness 
of this paternal injunction is lost in the dust of the 
years. But the aphorism that the good die young 
has no significance so far as Archie Maunders is 
concerned. 

The lawless element was altogether in the major- 
ity in the Bad Lands and thieving was common up 
and down the river and in the heart of the settle- 
ment itself. Maunders himself was too much of a 
coward to steal, too politic not to realize the dis- 
advantage in being caught red-handed. Bill Wil- 
liams was not above picking a purse when a 
reasonably safe occasion offered, but as a rule, like 
Maunders, he and his partner Hogue contrived to 
make some of the floaters and fly-by-nights, fugi- 
tives from other communities, do the actual stealing. 

Maunders ruled by the law of the bully, and 
most men took him at the valuation of his " bluff." 



COUNTY ORGANIZATION 55 

But his attempt to intimidate Mrs. McGeeney was 
a rank failure. One of his hogs wandered south 
across the railroad track and invaded Mrs. Mc- 
Geeney's vegetable garden; whereupon, to dis- 
courage repetition, she promptly scalded it. 
Maunders, discovering the injury to his property, 
charged over to Mrs. McGeeney's house with blood 
in his eyes. She was waiting for him with a butcher- 
knife in her hand. 

" Come on, ye damn bully! " she exclaimed. 
" Come on! I'm ready for ye! " 

Maunders did not accept the invitation, and 
thereafter gave Mrs. McGeeney a wide berth. 

There had been talk early in 1883 of organizing 
Billings County in which Little Missouri was situ- 
ated. The stimulus toward this project had come 
from Jake Maunders, Bill Williams, and Hogue, 
backed by the unholy aggregation of saloon rats 
and floaters who customarily gathered around them. 
Merrifield and the Ferrises, who had taken the first 
steps in the community toward the reign of law 
when they had refused to buy stolen horses, were 
heartily anxious to secure some form of organized 
government, for they had no sympathy with the 
lawlessness that made the settlement a perilous 
place for honest men. But they were wise enough 
to see that the aim of Jake Maunders and his crew 
in organizing the county was not the establishment 
of law and order, but the creation of machinery for 
taxation on which they could wax fat. The Maltese 
Cross group therefore objected strenuously to any 



56 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

attempt on the part of the other group to force 
the organization of the county. Merrifield, Sylvane 
and Joe, and two or three ranchmen and cowboys who 
gathered around them, among them Gregor Lang 
and Bill Dantz (an attractive youngster of eight- 
een who had a ranch half a dozen miles south of 
the Maltese Cross), were in the minority, but they 
were respected and feared, and in the face of their 
opposition even such high-handed scoundrels as 
Maunders, Hogue, and Williams developed a vein 
of caution. 

Meanwhile public safety was preserved in ways 
that were not altogether lawful, but were well 
known to all who lived in frontier communities. 

"Many is the man that's cleared that bend west 
of Little Missouri with bullets following his heels," 
said Merrifield, years after. " That's the way we 
had of getting rid of people we didn't like. There 
was no court procedure, just a notice to get out of 
town and a lot of bullets, and, you bet, they got 
out." 

Little Missouri's leading citizens were a wild 
crew, but with all their violence and their villainy, 
they were picturesque beings, and were by no means 
devoid of redeeming traits. Frank Vine, who evi- 
dently thought nothing of robbing his employers 
and was drunk more than half the time, had an 
equable temper which nothing apparently could 
ruffle, and a good heart to which no one in trouble 
ever seemed to appeal in vain. Mrs. McGeeney 
was a very " Lady of the Lamp " when any one was 



THE GRACES OF THE WICKED 57 

sick. Even Maunders had his graces. Roosevelt 
could not have lived among them a week without 
experiencing a new understanding of the incon- 
sistencies that battle with each other in the making 
of men's lives. 



IV 

No, he was not like other men. 

He fought at Acre (what's the date?), 
Died, and somehow got born again 

Seven hundred years too late. 

It wasn't that he hitched his wagon 
To stars too wild to heed his will — 

He was just old Sir Smite-the-dragon 
Pretending he was J. J. Hill. 

And always when the talk was cattle 
And rates and prices, selling, buying, 

I reckon he was dreaming battle, 
And, somewhere, grandly dying. 

From Medora Nights 

The Inhabitants of " Little Misery " who regarded 
law as a potential ball-and-chain were doing a thriv- 
ing business by one crooked means or another and 
looked with uneasiness upon the coming of the 
cattlemen. There were wails and threats that 
autumn in Bill Williams's saloon over " stuck-up 
tenderfeet, shassayin' 'round> drivin' in cattle and 
chasin' out game." 

" Maunders disliked Roosevelt from the first," 
said Bill Dantz. " He had no personal grudge 
against him, but he disliked him for w^hat he 
represented. Maunders had prospered under the 
loose and lawless customs of the Northwest, and 
he shied at any man who he thought might try to 
interfere with them." 

The coming of the Marquis de Mores six months 
previous had served greatly to heighten Maunders's 



MARQUIS DE MORES 59 

personal prestige and to strengthen the lawless 
elements. For the Marquis was attracted by Jake's 
evident power, and, while he drew the crafty 
schemer into his inner counsels, was himself drawn 
into a subtle net that was yet to entangle both 
men in forces stronger than either. 

When one day in March, 1883, a striking young 
Frenchman, who said he was a nobleman, came to 
Little Missouri with a plan ready-made to build a 
community there to rival Omaha, and a business 
that would startle America's foremost financiers, 
the citizens of the wicked little frontier settlement,, 
who thought that they knew all the possibilities of 
" tenderfeet " and " pilgrims " and " how-do-you- 
do-boys," admitted in some bewilderment that they 
had been mistaken. The Frenchman's name was 
Antoine de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Mores. He 
was a member of the Orleans family, son of a duke, 
a " white lily of France," remotely in line for the 
throne; an unusually handsome man, tall and 
straight, black of hair and moustache, twenty-five 
or twenty-six years old, athletic, vigorous, and 
commanding. He had been a French officer, a 
graduate of the French military school of Saint Cyr, 
and had come to America following his marriage 
abroad with Medora von Hoffman, the daughter of 
a wealthy New York banker of G-erman blood. 
His cousin, Count Fitz James, a descendant of the 
Jacobin exiles, had hunted in the Bad Lands the 
year previous, returning to France with stories 
of the new cattle country that stirred the Marquis's 



6o ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

imagination. He was an adventurous spirit. " He 
had no judgment," said Merrifield, " but he was a 
fighter from hell." The stories of life on the frontier 
lured him as they had lured others, but the dreams 
that came to him were more complex and expensive 
dreams than those which came to the other young 
men who turned toward Dakota in those early 
eighties. 

The Marquis arrived in Little Missouri with his 
father-in-law's millions at his back and a letter of 
introduction to Howard Eaton in his pocket. The 
letter, from a prominent business man in the East, 
ended, it seemed to Eaton, rather vaguely: " I 
don't know what experience he has had in business 
or anything of that kind, but he has some large 
views." 

The Marquis enthusiastically unfolded these 
views. " I am going to build an abattoir, I am going 
to buy all the beef, sheep, and hogs that come over 
the Northern Pacific, and I am going to slaughter 
them here and then ship them to Chicago and the 
East." 

" I don't think you have any idea how much 
stock comes over the Northern Pacific," Eaton 
remarked. 

" It doesn't matter! " cried the Marquis. " My 
father-in-law has ten million dollars and can borrow 
ten million dollars more. I've got old Armour and 
the rest of them matched dollar for dollar." 

Eaton said to himself that unquestionably the 
Marquis's views were " large." 



FOUNDING OF MEDORA 6i 

" Do you think I am impractical ? " the Marquis 
went on. " I am not impractical. My plan is 
altogether feasible. I do not merely think this. I 
know. My intuition tells me so. I pride myself on 
having a natural intuition. It takes me only a few 
seconds to understand a situation that other men 
have to puzzle over for hours. I seem to see every 
side of a question at once. I assure you, I am gifted 
in this way. I have wonderful insight." 

But Eaton said to himself, " I wonder if the 
Marquis isn't raising his sights too high? " 

The Marquis formed the Northern Pacific Refrig- 
erator Car Company with two brothers named 
Haupt as his partners and guides; and plunged into 
his dream as a boy into a woodland pool. But it 
did not take him long to discover that the water 
was cold. Frank Vine offered to sell out the Little 
Missouri Land and Cattle Company to him for 
twenty-five thousand dollars, and when the Mar- 
quis, discovering that Frank had nothing to sell ex- 
cept a hazy title to a group of ramshackle buildings, 
refused to buy, Frank's employers intimated to the 
Marquis that there was no room for the de Mores en- 
terprises in Little Missouri. The Marquis responded 
by buying what was known as Valentine scrip, or sol- 
diers' rights, to the flat on the other side of the river 
and six square miles around it, with the determina- 
tion of literally wiping Little Missouri off the map. 
On April Fool's Day, 1883 — auspicious date! — he 
pitched his tent in the sagebrush and founded the 
town of Medora. 



62 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The population of Little Missouri did not exhibit 
any noticeable warmth toward him or his dream. 
The hunters did not like " dudes " of any sort, but 
foreign " dudes " were particularly objectionable 
to them. His plans, moreover, struck at the heart 
of their free and untrammeled existence. As long 
as they could live by what their guns brought 
down, they were independent of the machinery of 
civilization. The coming of cattle and sheep meant 
the flight of antelope and deer. Hunters, to live, 
would have to buy and sell like common folk. That 
meant stores and banks, and these in time meant 
laws and police-ofhcers ; and police-officers meant 
the collapse of Paradise. It was all wrong. 

The Marquis recognized that he had stepped in 
where, previously, angels had feared to tread. It 
occurred to him that it would be the part of wisdom 
to conciliate Little Missouri's hostile population. 
He began with the only man who, in that unstable 
community, looked solid, and appealed to Gregor 
Lang, suggesting a union of forces. Lang, who 
did not like the grandiose Frenchman, bluntly re- 
fused to entertain the idea. 

" I am sorry," said the Marquis with a sincerity 
which was attractive and disarming. " I desire to 
be friends with every man." 

The Marquis's efforts to win supporters were not 
altogether without success, for the liveryman, Jerry 
Paddock, became his foreman, and Jake Maunders, 
evidently seeing in the noble Frenchman one of those 
gifts from the patron saint of crooked men which 



I 



THE MACHINATIONS OF MAUNDERS 63 

come to a knave only once in a lifetime, attached him- 
self to him and became his closest adviser. Maun- 
ders, as one who had known him well remarked long 
afterwards, " was too crooked to sleep in a round- 
house." Whether he set about deliberately to secure 
a hold on the Marquis, which the Marquis could 
never shake off, is a secret locked away with Maun- 
ders underground. If he did, he was more success- 
ful than wiser men have been in their endeavors. 
Insidiously he drew the Marquis into a quarrel, in 
which he himself was involved, with a hunter named 
Frank O' Donald and his two friends, John Renter, 
known as " Dutch Wannigan," and Riley Luffsey. 
He was a crafty lago, and the Marquis, born in a 
rose-garden and brought up in a hot-house, was 
guileless and trusting. Incidentally, the Marquis 
was "land hungry" and not altogether tactful in 
regarding the rights of others. Maunders carried 
bloodcurdling tales from the Marquis to 0' Donald 
and back again, until, as Howard Eaton remarked, 
"every one got nervous." 

" What shall I do? " the Marquis asked Maunders, 
unhappily, when Maunders reported that O' Donald 
was preparing for hostilities. 

"Look out," answered Maunders, "and have the 
first shot." 

The Marquis went to Mandan to ask the local 
magistrate for advice. "There is the situation," 
he said. "What shall I do?" 

"Why, shoot," was the judicial reply. 

He started to return to the center of hostilities. 



64 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

A friend protested. "You'll get shot if you go down 
there," he declared. 

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. " But 
I have got to go." 

**Now, why do you have to go?" 

"Why," replied the Marquis, "William is there. 
He Is my valet. His father was my father's valet, 
and his grandfather was my grandfather's valet. 
I cannot leave William in the lurch." 

Whereupon, smiling his engaging smile, he boarded 
the westbound express. 

What followed is dead ashes, that need not be 
raked over. Just west of the town where the trail 
ran along the railroad track, the Marquis and his 
men fired at the hunters from cover. O' Donald and 
"Wannigan" were wounded, Riley was killed. 
Maunders, claiming that the hunters had started 
the shooting, charged them with manslaughter, and 
had them arrested. 

The excitement in the little settlement was in- 
tense. Gregor Lang was outspoken in his indig- 
nation against the Marquis, and the few law-abiding 
citizens rallied around him. The Marquis was ar- 
rested and acquitted, but O' Donald and " Dutch 
Wannigan" were kept under lock and key. The 
better element in Little Missouri snorted in indigna- 
tion and disgust, but for the moment there was no- 
thing to be done about it. The excitement subsided. 
Riley Luffsey slept undisturbed on Graveyard Butte; 
the Marquis took up again the amazing activities 
which the episode of the quarrel had interrupted; 




"DUTCH WANNUiAN' (LEFT) AND 
FRANK O 'DONALD 




SCENE OF THE KILLING OF RILEY LUFFSEY 
June 26,1883 



THE BOOM BEGINS 65 

and Maunders, his mentor, flourished like the green 
bay tree. It was said that " after the murder, 
Maunders could get anything he wanted out of the 
Marquis"; so, from his point of view, the whole 
affair had been eminently successful. 
All this was in the summer of 1883. 

For all their violence and lawlessness there was no 
denying, meanwhile, that the settlements on both 
sides of the river, roughly known as Little Missouri, 
were beginning to flourish, and to catch the atten- 
tion of a curious world. 

The Mandan Pioneer spoke of surprising im- 
provements; and even the Dickinson Press, which 
was published forty miles to the east and which as a 
rule regarded Little Missouri as an outrageous but 
interesting blot on the map of Dakota, was betrayed 
into momentary enthusiasm. 

This town, situated in Pyramid Park on the banks 
of the Little Missouri River and surrounded by the 
Bad Lands with their fine scenery, is, at the present 
time, one of the most prosperous and rapidly growing 
towns along the line of the Northern Pacific. New 
buildings of every description are going up as fast as 
a large force of carpenters can do the work and an air 
of business and enterprise is apparent that would do 
honor to many an older town. 

The " personals " that follow give a glimpse into 
the Little Missouri of which Roosevelt was a part 
during that third week of September, 1883. 



66 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

NOTES 

Business booms. 

J. H. Butler Is right on sight. 

[McGeeney] and Walker are doing a good business. 

Geo. Fitzpatrick is doing a rushing business. 

J. B. Walker takes a good share of trade. 

Anderson's restaurant refreshes the inner man. 

Frank [Vine] rents the soldiers' quarters to tourists. 

[P. McGeeney] will have a fine hotel when it is com- 
pleted. 

We found the Marquis de Mores a pleasant gentleman. 

Little Missouri will double her population before 
spring. 

The new depot will be soon completed and will be a 
good one. 

It is worth remarking that Butler, McGeeney, 
Walker, Fitzpatrick, Anderson, and Frank Vine all 
conducted bars of one description or another. The 
" business " which is " booming " in the first line, 
therefore, seems to have been exclusively the busi- 
ness of selling and consuming liquor. 

There is one further item in those " Notes ": 

L. D. R-umsey, of Buffalo, N.Y., recently returned 
from a hunting expedition with Frank O'Donald. Frank 
is a good hunter and thoroughly posted about the 
country. 

For the bloodthirsty desperado, by whose un- 
conscious aid Maunders had contrived to get the 
Marquis into his power, was back in the Bad 
Lands, earning his living by hunting as he had 
earned it before the fatal June 26th when the Mar- 



THE MARQUIS IN BUSINESS 67 

quis lost his head. There had been a " reconcilia- 
tion." When O' Donald had returned to Little 
Missouri from his sojourn in the Mandan jail, he 
had been without money, and, as the Mandan 
Pioneer explained, " the Marquis helped him out 
by buying the hay on his ranch * in stubble.' " He 
bought the hay, it was rumored, for the sum of one 
thousand dollars, which was high for hay which 
would not begin growing for another eight months. 
But the " reconciliation " was complete. 

If Roosevelt met the Marquis during the week 
he spent in Little Missouri, that September, there 
is no record of that meeting. The Marquis was 
here, there, and everywhere, for the stately house he 
was building, on a grassy hill southward and across 
the river from his new " town," was not yet com- 
pleted, and he was, moreover, never inclined to stay 
long on one spot, rushing to Miles City or St. Paul, 
to Helena or to Chicago, at a moment's notice, in 
pursuit of one or the other of his expensive dreams. 

The Haupt brothers, it was said, were finding 
their senior partner somewhat of a care. He bought 
steers, and found, when he came to sell them as 
beef, that he had bought them at too high a price ; 
he bought cows and found that the market would 
not take cow-meat at all. Thereupon (lest the cold 
facts which he had acquired concerning cattle should 
rob him of the luxury of spacious expectations) he 
bought five thousand dollars worth of broncos. He 
would raise horses, he declared, on an unprecedented 
scale. 



68 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The horses had barely arrived when the Marquis 
announced that he intended to raise sheep also. 
The Haupt brothers protested, but the Marquis was 
not to be diverted. 

The hunters and cattlemen looked on in anger 
and disgust as sheep and ever more sheep began to 
pour into the Bad Lands. They knew, what the 
Marquis did not know, that sheep nibble the grass 
so closely that they kill the roots, and ruin the 
pasture for cattle and game. He tempered their 
indignation somewhat by offering a number of them 
a form of partnership in his enterprise. "His plan," 
says the guidebook of the Northern Pacific, pub- 
lished that summer of 1883, "is to engage experi- 
enced herders to the number of twenty-four, supply 
them with as many sheep as they may desire, and 
provide all necessary buildings and funds to carry 
on operations for a period of seven years. At the 
end of this time a division of the increase of the 
flocks is to be made, from which alone the Marquis 
is to derive his profits." 

There was no one in the Bad Lands, that summer 
of 1883, who, if asked whether he knew anything 
about business or live stock or the laws of sidereal 
space, would not have claimed that he knew all 
that it was necessary for any man to know. The 
Marquis had no difficulty in finding the desired 
twenty-four. Each signed a solemn contract with 
him and let the sheep wander where they listed, 
eating mutton with relish and complaining to the 
Marquis of the depredations of the coyotes. 



ROOSEVELT RETURNS EAST 69 

One who was more honest than the rest went to 
Herman Haupt at the end of August and drew his 
attention to the fact that many of the wethers and 
ewes were so old that they had no teeth to nibble 
with and were bound to die of starvation. Haupt 
rode from ranch to ranch examining the herds and 
came to the conclusion that six thousand out of 
twelve were too old to survive under the best 
conditions, and telegraphed the Marquis to that 
effect, advising that they be slaughtered at once. 

The answer of the Marquis was prompt. " Don't 
kill any sheep," it ran. Haupt shrugged his 
shoulders. By the time Roosevelt left Little Mis- 
souri the end of September, the sheep were already 
beginning, one by one, to perish. But by this 
time the Marquis was absorbed in a new undertak- 
ing and was making arrangements to ship untold 
quantities of buffalo-meat and other game on his 
refrigerator cars to Eastern markets, unaware 
that a certain young man with spectacles had 
just shot one of the last buffalo that the inhabitants 
of Little Missouri were 6ver destined to see. 

Roosevelt, learning a great deal about the ways 
of men who are civilized too little and men who are 
civilized too much, spent a week waiting in Little 
Missouri and roundabout for word from Merrifield 
and Sylvane. It came at last in a telegram saying 
that Wadsworth and Halley had given them a 
release and that they were prepared to enter into 
a new partnership. Roosevelt started promptly for 
St. Paul, and on September 27th signed a contract ^ 
* See Appendix. 



70 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

with the two Canadians. Sylvane and Merrifield 
thereupon went East to Iowa, to purchase three 
hundred head of cattle in addition to the hundred 
and fifty which they had taken over from Wadsworth 
and Halley; while Roosevelt, who a little less than 
three weeks previous had dropped off the train at 
Little Missouri for a hunt and nothing more, took 
up again the sober threads of life. 

He returned East to his lovely young wife and a 
campaign for a third term in the New York Legis- 
lature, stronger in body than he had ever felt before. 
If he expected that his family would think as highly 
of his cattle venture as he did himself, he was 
doomed to disappointment. Those members of it 
whom he could count on most for sincere solicitude 
for his welfare were most emphatic in their dis- 
approval. They considered his investment fool- 
hardy, and said so. Uncle James and the other 
business men of the family simply threw up their 
hands in despair. His sisters, who admired him 
enormously and had confidence in his judgment, 
were frankly worried. Pessimists assured him that 
his cattle would die like flies during the winter. 

He lost no sleep for apprehensions. 

Little Missouri, meanwhile, was cultivating the 
air of one who is conscious of imminent greatness. 
The Marquis was extending his business in a way 
to stir the imagination of any community. In 
Miles City he built a slaughter-house, in Billings 
he built another. He established ofhces in St. Paul, 
in Brainerd, in Duluth. He built refrigerator plants 



THE MARQUIS'S IDEA 71 

and storehouses . in Mandan and Bismarck and 
Vedalles and Portland. 

His plan, on the surface, was practical. It was 
to slaughter on the range the beef that was consumed 
along the Northern Pacific Railway, west of St. Paul. 
The Marquis argued that to send a steer on the hoof 
from Medora to Chicago and then to send it back in 
the form of beef to Helena or Portland was sheer 
waste of the consumer's money in freight rates. A 
steer, traveling for days in a crowded cattle-car, 
moreover, had a way of shrinking ten per cent in 
weight. It was more expensive, furthermore, to ship 
a live steer than a dead one. Altogether, the scheme 
appeared to the Marquis as a heaven-sent inspira- 
tion; and cooler-headed business men than he ac- 
cepted it as practical. The cities along the Northern 
Pacific acclaimed it enthusiastically, hoping that it 
meant cheaper beef; and presented the company 
that was exploiting it with all the land it wanted. 

The Marquis might have been forgiven if, in the 
midst of the cheering, he had strutted a bit. But 
he did not strut. The newspapers spoke of his 
" modest bearing " as he appeared in hotel corridors 
in Washington and St. Paul and New York, with a 
lady whose hair was " Titan-red," as the Pioneer 
Press of St. Paul had it, and who, it was rumored, 
was a better shot than the Marquis. He had great 
charm, and there was something engaging in the 
perfection with which he played the grand seigneur. 

" How did you happen to go into this sort of 
business? " he was asked. 



72 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" I wanted something to do," he answered. 

In view of the fact that before his first abattoir 
was in operation he had spent upwards of three 
hundred thousand dollars, an impartial observer 
might have remarked that his desire for activity 
was expensive. 

Unquestionably the Marquis had made an im- 
pression on the Northwest country. The hints he 
threw out concerning friends in Paris who were 
eager to invest five million dollars in Billings County 
were sufficient to cause palpitation in more than one 
Dakota bosom. The Marquis promised telephone 
lines up and down the river and other civic improve- 
ments that were dazzling to the imagination and 
stimulating to the price of building lots; and 
implanted firmly in the minds of the inhabitants 
of Medora the idea that in ten years their city 
would rival Omaha. Meanwhile, Little Missouri 
and the "boom town" were leading an existence 
which seemed to ricochet back and forth between 
Acadian simplicity and the livid sophistication of 
a mining-camp. 

" Sheriff Cuskelly made a business trip to 
Little Missouri," is the gist of countless " Notes " 
in the Dickinson Press, " and reports everything as 
lively at the town on the Little Muddy." 

Lively it was ; but its liveliness was not all thievery 
and violence. " On November 5th," the Dickinson 
Press announces, " the citizens of Little Missouri 
opened a school." Whom they opened it for is 
dark as the ancestry of Melchizedek. But from 



PACKARD 73 

somewhere some one procured a teacher, and in the 
saloons the cowboys and the hunters, the horse- 
thieves and gamblers and fly-by-nights and painted 
ladies " chipped in " to pay his " board and keep." 
The charm of this outpouring of dollars in the 
cause of education is not dimmed by the fact that 
the school-teacher, in the middle of the first term, 
discovered a more profitable form of activity and 
deserted his charges to open a saloon. 

Late in November a man of a different sort blew 
into town. His name was A. T. Packard. He 
was joyously young, like almost every one else in 
Little Missouri, except Maunders and Paddock 
and Captain Vine, having graduated from the 
University of Michigan only a year before. He 
drifted westward, and, having a taste for things 
literary, became managing editor of the Bismarck 
Trihime. Bismarck was lurid in those days, and 
editing a newspaper there meant not only writing 
practically everything in it, including the advertise- 
ments, but also persuading the leading citizens by 
main force that the editor had a right to say what 
he pleased. Packard had been an athlete in college, 
and his eyes gave out before his rule had been 
seriously disputed. After throwing sundry pro- 
testing malefactors downstairs, he resigned and 
undertook work a trifle less exacting across the 
Missouri River, on the Mandan Pioneer. 

Packard became fascinated with the tales he 
heard of Little Missouri and Medora and, being 
foot loose, drifted thither late in November. It 



74 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

happened that Frank Vine, who had by that time 
been deposed as agent of the Gorringe syndicate, 
was running the Pyramid Park Hotel. He had met 
Packard in Mandan and greeted him Hke a long- 
lost brother. As the newcomer was sitting in a 
corner of the barroom after supper, writing home, 
Frank came up and bent over him. 

" You told me down in Mandan that you'd 
never seen an honest- to-goodness cowboy," he 
whispered. " See that fellow at the farther end of 
the bar? Well, that's a real cowboy." 

Packard looked up. The man was standing with 
his back toward the wall, and it struck the tender- 
foot that there was something in his attitude and 
in the look in his eye that suggested that he was 
on the watch and kept his back to the wall with a 
purpose. He wore the paraphernalia of the cowboy 
with ease and grace. 

Packard started to describe him to his " folks " in 
distant Indiana. He described his hat, his face, his 
clothes, his shaps, his loosely hanging belt with the 
protruding gun. He looked up and studied the man; 
he looked down and wrote. The man finally became 
conscious that he was the subject of study. Packard 
observed Frank Vine whisper a word of explanation. 

He finished his letter and decided to take it to 
the " depot " and ask the telegraph operator to 
mail it on the eastbound train that passed through 
Little Missouri at three. He opened the door. 
The night was black, and a blast of icy wind greeted 
him. He changed his mind. 



FRANK VINE'S LITTLE JOKE 75 

The next afternoon he was riding up the river to 
the Maltese Cross when he heard hoofs behind him. 
A minute later the object of his artistic efforts of 
the night before joined him and for an hour loped 
along at his side. He was not slow in discovering 
that the man was pumping him. It occurred to 
him that turn-about was fair play, and he told him 
all the man wanted to know. 

" So you're a newspaper feller," remarked the 
man at length. "That's damn funny. But I 
guess it's so if you say so. You see," he added, 
" Frank Vine he said you was a deputy-sheriff on 
the lookout for a horse-thief." 

Packard felt his hair rise under his hat. 

" Where was you going last night when you 
started to go out? " 

" To the telegraph-ofifice." 

" I made up my mind you was going to telegraph." 

" I was just going to mail a letter." 

" Well, if you'd gone I'd have killed you." 

Packard gasped a little. Frank Vine was a joker 
with a vengeance. They rode on, talking of lighter 
matters.^ 

Packard had come to the Bad Lands with the 
idea of spending the winter in the open, hunting, 
but he was a newspaper man from top to toe and 
in the back of his mind there was a notion that it 
would be a good deal of a lark, and possibly a not 

^ A year later, Packard, as Chief of Police, officiated at what was 
euphemistically known as a " necktie party " at which his companion 
of that ride was the guest of honor. 



76 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

unprofitable venture, to start a weekly newspaper 
in the Marquis de Mores's budding metropolis. He 
had, at the tender age of thirteen, been managing 
editor of a country newspaper, owned by his father, 
and ever since had been drawn again and again 
back into the " game " by that lure which few 
men who yield to it are ever after able to resist. 

He broached the matter to the Marquis. That 
gentleman was patronizing, but agreed that a 
special organ might prove of value to his Company. 
He offered to finance the undertaking. 

Packard remarked that evidently the Marquis 
did not understand. If he started a paper it would 
be an organ for nobody. He intended to finance it 
himself and run it to please himself. All he wanted 
was a building. 

The Marquis, a little miffed, agreed to rent him 
a building north of his general store in return for a 
weekly advertisement for the Company. Packard 
ordered his type and his presses and betook himself 
to the solitude of the wintry buttes to think of a 
name for his paper. His battle was half won when 
he came back with the name of The Bad Lands 
Cowboy. 

His first issue came out early in February, 1884. 
It was greeted with interest even by so mighty a 
contemporary as the New York Herald. 

We hail with pleasure the birth of a new Dakota 
paper, the Bad Lands Cowhoy [runs the note of welcome]. 
The Cowhoy is really a neat little journal, with lots to 
read in it, and the American press has every reason to be 







^ 



MEDORA BLOSSOMS FORTH 77 

proud of its new baby. We are quite sure it will live 
to be a credit to the family. The Cowboy evidently 
means business. It says in the introductory notice to 
its first number that it intends to be the leading cattle 
paper of the Northwest, and adds that it is not published 
for fun, but for $2 a year. 

All the autumn and winter Medora and her rival 
across the river had been feverishly competing for 
supremacy. But Little Missouri, though she built 
ever so busily, in such a contest had not a chance 
in the world. For the Little Missouri Land and 
Stock Company, which was its only hope, w^as 
moribund, and the Marquis was playing, in a sense, 
with loaded dice. He spoke persuasively to the 
officials of the Northern Pacific and before the 
winter was well advanced the stop for express trains 
was on the eastern side of the river, and Little 
Missouri, protest as she would, belonged to the past. 
When the Cowboy appeared for the first time, 
Medora was in the full blaze of national fame, 
having " broken into the front page " of the New 
York Sun. For the Marquis was bubbling over 
with pride and confidence, and the tales he told a 
credulous interviewer filled a column. A few were 
based on fact, a few were builded on the nebulous 
foundation of hope, and a few were sheer romance. 
The most conspicuous case of romance was a story 
of the stage-line from Medora to the prosperous and 
wild little mining town of Dead wood, two hundred 
miles or more to the south. 

" The Marquis had observed," narrates the inter- 



78 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

viewer, " that the divide on the top of the ridge 
between the Little Missouri and the Missouri 
Rivers was almost a natural roadway that led 
directly toward Deadwood. He gave this roadway 
needed artificial improvements, and started the 
Deadwood and Medora stage-line. This is now 
diverting the Deadwood trade to Medora, to the 
great advantage of both places." 

Who, reading that sober piece of information, 
would have dreamed that the stage-line in question 
was at the time nothing but a pious hope? 

The Dickinson Press was blunt in its comment. 
" Stages are not running from Medora to Dead- 
wood," it remarked editorially, ** nor has the road- 
way ever been improved. The Marquis should put 
a curb on his too vivid imagination and confine 
himself a little more strictly to facts." 

But facts were not the things on which a nature 
like de Mores's fed. 

His sheep meanwhile, were dying by hundreds 
every week. Of the twelve thousand he had turned 
loose on the range during the preceding summer, 
half were dead by the middle of January. There 
were rumors that rivals of the Marquis had used 
poison. 

The loss [declared a dispatch to the Minneapolis 
Journal] can be accounted for on no other ground. It 
is supposed that malicious motives prompted the deed, 
as the Marquis is known to have had enemies since the 
killing of Luffsey./ 

If the Marquis took any stock in these suspi- 



THE MARQUIS HAS A NEW DREAM 79 

cions, his partners, the Haupt brothers, did not. 
They knew that it was a physical impossibihty to 
poison six thousand sheep scattered over ten thou- 
sand square miles of snowbound landscape. 

The Haupts were by this time thoroughly out 
of patience with de Mores. There was a stormy 
meeting of the directors of the Northern Pacific 
Refrigerator Car Company in St. Paul, in the course 
of which the Haupt brothers told their distinguished 
senior partner exactly what they thought of his 
business ability; and suggested that the Company 
go into liquidation. 

The Marquis jumped to his feet in a rage. " I 
won't let it go into liquidation," he cried. " My 
honor is at stake. I have told my friends in France 
that I would do so and so and so, that I would 
make money, a great deal of money. I must do it. 
Or where am I? " 

The Haupts did not exactly know. They com- 
promised with the Marquis by taking the bonds of 
the Company in exchange for their stock, and re- 
tired with inner jubilation at having been able to 
withdraw from a perilous situation with skins more 
or less intact. 

The Marquis, as usual, secreted himself from 
the stern eyes of Experience, in the radiant emana- 
tions of a new dream. The Dickinson Press an- 
nounced it promptly: 

The Marquis de Mores has a novel enterprise under 
way, which he is confident will prove a success, it being 
a plan to raise 50,000 cabbages on his ranch at the Little 



8o ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Missouri, and have them ready for the market April i. 
They will be raised under glass in some peculiar French 
manner, and when they have attained a certain size, 
will be transplanted into individual pots and forced 
rapidly by rich fertilizers, made from the offal of the 
slaughter-houses and for which preparation he owns 
the patent. Should the cabbages come out on time, he 
will try his hand on other kinds of vegetables, and 
should he succeed the citizens along' the line will have 
an opportunity to get as early vegetables as those who 
live in the sunny South. 

The cabbages were a dream which seems never 
to have materialized even to the point of being a 
source of expense, and history speaks no more of it. 

The boys at the Chimney Butte, meanwhile, 
were hibernating, hunting as the spirit moved 
them and keeping a general eye on the stock. Of 
Roosevelt's three friends, Joe was the only one 
who was reall}^ busy. Joe, it happened, was no 
longer working for Frank Vine. He was now a 
storekeeper. It was all due to the fateful hundred 
dollars which he had loaned the unstable Johnny 
Nelson. 

For Johnny Nelson, so far as Little Missouri was 
concerned, was no more. He had bought all his 
goods on credit from some commission house in St. 
Paul; but his payments, due mainly to the fact 
that his receipts all drifted sooner or later into the 
guileful hands of Jess Hogue, were infrequent and 
finally stopped altogether. Johnny received word 
that his creditor in St. Paul was coming to investi- 
gate him. He became frantic and confided the 



JOE FERRIS ACQUIRES A STORE 8i 

awful news to every one he met. Hoguej Bill 
Williams, Jake Maunders, and a group of their sat- 
ellites, hearing the doleful recital in Bill Williams's 
saloon, told Johnny that the sheriff would unques- 
tionably close up his store and take everything 
away from him. 

" You give me the keys," said Jake Maunders, 
" and I'll see that the sheriff don't get your stuff." 

Johnny in his innocence gave up the keys. That 
night Jake Maunders and his " gang " entered the 
store and completely cleaned it out. They did not 
leave a button or a shoestring. It was said after- 
wards that Jake Maunders did not have to buy a 
new suit of clothes for seven years, and even 
Williams's two tame bears wore ready-made coats 
from St. Paul. 

Johnny Nelson went wailing to Katie, his be- 
trothed. 

" I've lost everything!" he cried. " I've lost all 
my goods and I can't get more. I've lost my reputa- 
tion. I can't marry you. I've lost my reputation." 

Katie was philosophic about it. " That's all 
right, Johnny," she said comfortingly, " I lost mine 
long ago." 

At that, Johnny "skipped the country." And so 
it was that Joe Ferris, to save his hundred dollars 
attached Johnny's building and became storekeeper. 

For Roosevelt, two thousand miles to the east, 
the winter was proving exciting. He had won his 
reelection to the Assembly with ease and had 
plunged into his work with a new vigor and a more 



82 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

solid self-reliance. He became the acknowledged 
leader of the progressive elements in the Legislature, 
the " cyclone member " at whom the reactionaries 
who were known as the " Black Horse Cavalry" 
sneered, but of whom, nevertheless, they were 
heartily afraid. 

He " figured in the news," day in, day out, for 
the public, it seemed, was interested in this vigorous 
and emphatic young man from the " Silkstocking 
District " of New York. Roosevelt took his public- 
ity with zest, for he was human and enjoyed the 
sensation of being counted with those who made 
the wheels go around. Meanwhile he worked all 
day and conversed half the night on a thousand 
topics which his ardor made thrilling. In society 
he was already somewhat of a lion; and he was 
only twenty-five years old. 

Life was running, on the whole, very smoothly 
for Theodore Roosevelt when in January, 1884, he 
entered upon his third term in the Legislature. He 
was happily married, he had wealth, he had a 
notable book on the War of 1812 to his credit; he 
had, it seemed, a smooth course ahead of him, down 
pleasant roads to fame. 

On February 12th, at ten o'clock in the morning, 
his wife gave birth to a daughter. At five o'clock 
the following morning his mother died. Six hours 
later his wife died. 

He was stunned and dazed, but within a week 
after the infinitely pathetic double funeral he was 
back at his desk in the Assembly, ready to fling 



ROOSEVELT MEETS DISASTER 83 

himself with every fiber of energy at his command 
into the fight for clean government. He supported 
civil service reform; he was chairman of a com- 
mittee which investigated certain phases of New 
York City official life, and carried through the 
Legislature a bill taking from the Board of Aldermen 
the power to reject the Mayor's appointments. 
He was chairman and practically the only active 
member of another committee to investigate living 
conditions in the tenements of New York, and as 
spokesman of the worn and sad-looking foreigners 
who constituted the Cigar-Makers' Union, argued 
before Governor Cleveland for the passage of a 
bill to prohibit the manufacture of cigars in tene- 
ment-houses. His energy was boundless, it seemed, 
but the heart had gone out of him. He was restless, 
and thought longingly of the valley of the Little 
Missouri. 

The news that came from the boys at Chimney 
Butte was favorable. The three hundred head of 
young cattle which Sylvane and Merrifield had 
bought in Iowa, were doing well in spite of a hard 
winter. Roosevelt, struck by Sylvane's enthusiastic 
report, backed by a painstaking account-sheet, wrote 
Sylvane telling him to buy a thousand or twelve 
hundred head more. 

Sylvane's reply was characteristic and would 
have gratified Uncle James. " Don't put in any 
more money until you're sure we've scattered the 
other dollars right," he said in effect. " Better 
come out first and look around.'* 



8.4 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

That struck Roosevelt as 'good advice, and he 
accepted it. 

While Roosevelt was winning clear, meanwhile, 
of the tangles and snares in Albany, he was un- 
consciously being enmeshed in the web that v/as 
spinning at Medora. 

It came about this way. The Marquis, who had 
many likable qualities, did not possess among them 
any strict regard for the rights of others. He had a 
curious obsession, in fact, that in the Bad Lands 
there were no rights but his; and with that point 
of view had directed his superintendent, a man 
named Matthews, to drive fifteen hundred head 
of cattle over on an unusually fine piece of bottom- 
land northwestward across the river from the 
Maltese Cross, which, by all the laws of the range, 
belonged to the " Roosevelt outfit." Matthews 
declared that the Marquis intended to hold the 
bottom permanently for fattening beef-cattle, and 
to build a cabin there. 

" You'll have to move those cattle by daylight," 
said Merrifield, "or we'll move them for you. You 
can take your choice." 

" I've got my orders from the Marquis to keep 
the cattle here," answered Matthews. " That's all 
there is to it. They'll stay here." 

It was late at night, but Sylvane and Merrifield 
rode to Medora taking a neighboring cowboy named 
Pete Marlow along as witness, " for the Marquis 
is a hard man to deal with," remarked Merrifield. 
To Pete it was all the gayest sort of adventure. 



INVASION 85 

He confided the object of the nocturnal expedition 
to the first man he came upon. 

The Marquis was not at his home. The boys 
were told that he might still be at his office, though 
the time was nearing midnight. 

Meanwhile Pete's news had spread. From the 
base of Graveyard Butte, Jake Hainsley, the 
superintendent of the coal mine, who dearly loved 
a fight, came running with a rifle in his hand. 
"I've got forty men myself," he cried, " and I've 
Winchesters for every mother's son of 'em, and if 
you need help you just let me know and we'll back 
you all right, we will." 

The Marquis was in his office in Medora next to 
the new Company store, working with Van Driesche, 
his valet and secretary. He asked what the three 
men wanted of him at that hour in the night. 
Merrifield explained the situation. 

They told him: " We want 3^ou to write an order 
to move those cattle at daylight." 

" If I refuse? " 

Sylvane and Merrifield had thoroughly discussed 
the question what they would do in case the Marquis 
refused. They would take tin pans and stampede 
the herd. They were under no illusions concerning 
the probabilities in case they took that means of 
ridding themselves of the unwelcome herd. There 
would be shooting, of course. 

" Why, Marquis," said Merrifield, " if Matthews 
don't move those cattle, I guess there's nothing to 
it but what we'll have to move them ourselves." 



86 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The Marquis had not lived a year in the Bad 
Lands without learning something. In a more con- 
ciliatory mood he endeavored to find ground for 
a compromise. But " the boys " were not inclined 
to compromise with a man w^ho was patently in the 
wrong. Finally, the Marquis offered them fifteen hun- 
dred dollars on the condition that they would allow 
him to use the piece of bottom-land for three weeks. 

It was on its face a munificent offer; but Merri- 
field and Sylvane knew that the Marquis's " three 
weeks " might not terminate after twenty-one 
days. They knew something else. " After we had 
made our statement," Merrifield explained later, 
" no matter how much he had offered us we would 
not have accepted it. We knew there'd be no living 
with a man like the Marquis if you made statements 
and then backed down for any price." 

Never draw your gun, ran a saying of the frontier, 
unless you mean to shoot. 

" Marquis," said Merrifield, " we've made our 
statement once for all. If you don't see fit to write 
that order there won't be any more talk. We will 
move the cattle ourselves." 

The Marquis was courteous and even friendly. 
" I am sorry you cannot do this for me." he said; 
but he issued the order. Merrifield and Sylvane 
themselves carried it to the offending superin- 
tendent. Matthews was furious; but he moved the 
cattle at dawn. The whole affair did not serve to 
improve the relations between the groups which the 
killing of Riley Luffsey had originally crystallized. 



ROOSEVELT TURNS WEST 87 

Roosevelt probably remained unaware of the 
interesting complications that were being woven 
for him in the hot-hearted frontier community of 
which he was now a part; for Merrifield and 
Sylvane, as correspondents, were laconic, not being 
given to spreading themselves out on paper. His 
work in the Assembly and the pre-convention 
campaign for presidential candidates completely 
absorbed his energies. He was eager that a reform 
candidate should be named by the Republicans, 
vigorously opposing both Blaine and Arthur, him- 
self preferring Senator Edmunds of Vermont. He 
fought hard and up to a certain point successfully, 
for at the State Republican Convention held in 
Utica in April he thoroughly trounced the Old 
Guard, who were seeking to send a delegation to 
Chicago favorable to Arthur, and was himself 
elected head of the delegates at large, popularly 
known as the " Big Four." 

He had, meanwhile, made up his mind that, 
however the dice might fall at the convention, he 
would henceforth make his home, for a part of the 
year at least, in the Bad Lands. He had twcrfriends 
in Maine, backwoodsmen mighty with the axe, and 
born to the privations of the frontier, whom he 
decided to take with him if he could. One was 
" Bill " Sewall, a stalwart viking at the end of 
his thirties, who had been his guide on frequent 
occasions when as a boy in college he had sought 
health and good hunting on the waters of Lake 
Mattawamkeag ; the other was Sewall's nephew, 



88 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Wilmot Dow. He flung out the suggestion to them, 
and they rose to it Hke hungry trout; for they had 
adventurous spirits. 

The RepubHcan National Convention met in 
Chicago in the first days of June. Roosevelt, 
supported by his friend Henry Cabot Lodge and a 
group of civil service reformers that included George 
William Curtis and Carl Schurz, led the fight for 
Edmunds. But the convention wanted Blaine, the 
" Plumed Knight "; and the convention got Blaine. 

Roosevelt raged, but refused to follow Curtis and 
Schurz, who hinted darkly at " bolting the ticket." 
He took the first train to Dakota, sick at heart, to 
think things over. 



V 

He wears a big hat and big spurs and all that, 

And leggins of fancy fringed leather; 
He takes pride in his boots and the pistol he shoots 

And he's happy in all kinds of weather; 
He's fond of his horse, it's a broncho, of course, 

For oh, he can ride like the devil; 
He is old for his years and he always appears 

Like a fellow who's lived on the level; 
He can sing, he can cook, yet his eyes have the look 

Of a man that to fear is a stranger; 
Yes, his cool, quiet nerve will always subserve 

For his wild life of duty and danger. 
He gets little to eat, and he guys tenderfeet. 

And for fashion, oh well ! he's not in it ; 
But he'll rope a gay steer when he gets on its ear 

At the rate of two-forty a minute. 

Cowboy song 

Blaine was nominated on June 7th. On the 8th 
Roosevelt was already in St. Paul, on his way to 
the Bad Lands. A reporter of the Pioneer Press 
interviewed him and has left this description of him 
as he appeared fresh from the battle at Chicago: 

He is short and slight and with rather an ordinary 
appearance, although his frame is wiry and his flashing 
eyes and rapid, nerv^ous gestures betoken a hidden 
strength. He is not at all an ideal Harvard alumnus, 
for he lacks that ingrained conceit and grace of manner 
that a residence at Cambridge insures. Although of 
the old Knickerbocker stock, his manner and carriage 
is awkward and not at all impressive. 

He arrived in Medora on the evening of the 9th. 
The Ferrises and Merrifield were at the " depot " 
to meet him. They all adjourned to Packard's 



90 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

printing-office, since that was the only place in 
town of a semi-public character which was not at 
that hour in possession of a noisy aggregation of 
Medora's thirstiest citizens. 

The office of the Bad Lands Cowboy, which stood 
under a gnarled cottonwood-tree north of the 
Marquis's store, was a one-room frame building 
which served as the editor's parlor, bedroom, and 
bath, as well as his printing-office and his editorial 
sanctum. It was built of perpendicular boards which 
let in the wintry blasts in spite of the two-inch 
strips w^hich covered the joints on the outside. It 
had, in fact, originally served as the Marquis's 
blacksmith shop, and the addition of a wooden 
floor had not altogether converted it into a habitable 
dwelling, proof agamst Dakota weather. On this 
particular June night the thermometer was in the 
thirties and a cannon stove glowed red from a 
steady application of lignite. 

A half-dozen voices greeted Roosevelt with pleas 
for the latest news of the " great Republican 
round-up." Roosevelt was not loath to unburden 
his soul. For an hour he told of the battles and the 
manipulations of the convention, of the stubborn 
fight against an impending nomination which he 
had known would be a fatal mistake, but which the 
majority seemed to be bound to make. 

Packard told about it years aftersvard. "He 
gave us such a swinging description of the stirring 
scenes of the convention that the eyes of the boys 
were fairly popping out of their heads. But it was 



I WILL NOT BE DICTATED TO! 91 

when he told how Roscoe Conkling attempted to 
dominate the situation and override the wishes of 
a large portion of the New York delegation that 
the fire really began to flash in his eyes. I can see 
him now as plainly as I did then, as he straightened 
up, his doubled fist in the air, his teeth glittering, 
and his eyes squinting in something that was far 
from a smile as he jerked out the words, 'By 
Godfrey! I will not be dictated to!'" 

Roosevelt rode to the Maltese Cross next morn- 
ing. The old stockade shack, with the dirt floor 
and dirt roof, had, as he had suggested, been con- 
verted into a stable, and a simple but substantial 
one-and-a-half story log cabin had been built with 
a shingle roof and a cellar, both luxuries in the 
Bad Lands. An alcove off the one large room on 
the main floor was set aside for Roosevelt's use as 
combined bedroom and study; the other men were 
quartered in the loft above. East of the ranch- 
house beside a patch of kitchen-garden, stood the 
strongly made circular horse-corral, with a snubbing- 
post in the middle, and at some distance from it 
the larger cow-corral for the branding of the cattle. 
Between them stood the cowsheds and the hayricks. 

The ranch-buildings belonged to Sylvane Ferris 
and Merrifield. In buying out the Maltese Cross, 
Roosevelt had bought only cattle and horses; not 
buildings or land. The ranges on which his cattle 
grazed were owned by the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road, and by the Government. It was the custom 
for ranchmen to claim for grazing purposes a certain 



92 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

stretch of land north, east, south, and west of the 
bottom on which the home ranch stood. 

" You claim so much land each way," Sylvane 
explained to a tenderfoot a long time after, " accord- 
ing to how many cattle you have. For instance, 
if you have one hundred head of cattle, you don't 
require very much range; if you have a thousand 
head, you need so much more. There wouldn't be 
any sense of one man trying to crowd his cattle onto 
your range and starve out both outfits. So each 
man claims as much land as he needs. Of course, 
that doesn't mean that the other fellow doesn't get 
over on your range — that's the reason we brand 
our cattle; it simply means that a certain given 
number of cattle will have a certain given amount 
of grazing land. Our cattle may be on the other 
fellow's range and some of his may be on our range, 
but he'll claim so much land each way and we'll 
claim so much land each way, and then it doesn't 
make any difference if they do get on each other's 
territory, so long as there is enough grazing for 
the two outfits." 

The range claimed by the " Maltese Cross outfit " 
extended northward to the river-crossing above 
Eaton's " Custer Trail Ranch," and southward to 
the crossing just below what was known as " Sloping 
Bottom," covering a territory that had a frontage 
of four miles on both sides of the river and extended 
back on each side for thirty miles to the heads of 
the creeks which emptied iato the Little Missouri. 

The cattle, Roosevelt found, were looking sleek 




MERRIFIELD 



SYLVANE FERRIS 



i 


^ 


H Ik 




#ii» m\h ift^_ 




•'■■■" 



THE MALTESE CROSS RANCH-HOUSE AS IT WAS WHEN ROOSEVELT 

LIVED IN IT 



( 



GEORGE MYERS 93 

and well-fed. He had lost about twenty-five head 
during the winter, partly from the cold, partly from 
the attacks of wolves. There were, he discovered, 
a hundred and fifty fine calves. 

A new cowpuncher had been added to the Maltese 
Cross outfit, he found, since the preceding autumn. 
It was George Myers, whom he had met on the ride 
down the river from Lang's. Roosevelt had pur- 
chased five hundred dollars' worth of barbed wire 
and George was digging post-holes. He was a 
boyish and attractive individual whom the wander- 
lust had driven westward from his home in Wis- 
consin. His honesty fairly leaped at you out of 
his direct, clear eyes. 

Roosevelt spent two days contemplating his new 
possessions. At the end of the second he had reached 
a decision, and he announced it promptly. He told 
Sylvane and Merrifield to get ready to ride to Lang's 
with him the next day for the purpose of drawing 
up a new contract. He had determined to make 
cattle- raising his " regular business " and intended, 
at once (in riotous defiance of Uncle James!), to 
put a thousand head more on the range. 

The Langs were situated seven miles nearer 
civilization than they had been on Roosevelt's 
previous visit, and were living in a dugout built 
against a square elevation that looked like a low 
fortress or the " barrow " of some dead Viking 
chief. They were building a ranch-house in antici- 
pation of the coming of Mrs. Lang and two children, 
a girl of eighteen or nineteen and a son a half-dozen 



94 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

years younger than Lincoln. The dugout was 
already overcrowded with three or four carpenters 
who were at work on the house, and Gregor Lang 
suggested that they ride five miles up the river to a 
cabin of his on what was known as " Sagebrush 
Bottom," where he and Lincoln had spent the 
winter. They had moved out of the shack on the 
Little Cannonball for two reasons. One was that 
a large cattle outfit from New Mexico, named the 
Berry-Boyce Cattle Company, had started a ranch, 
known as the " Three Seven," not half a mile down 
the river; the other was that Gregor Lang was by 
disposition not one who was able to learn from the 
experience of others. For it happened that, a few 
weeks after Roosevelt's departure in September, a 
skunk had invaded the cabin and made itself com- 
fortable under one of the bunks. Lincoln and the 
Highlander were in favor of diplomacy in dealing 
with the invader. But Gregor Lang reached for a 
pitchfork. They pleaded with him, without effect. 
The skunk retaliated in his own fashion; and 
shortly after, they moved forever out of the cabin 
on the Little Cannonball. 

Roosevelt, who recognized Gregor Lang's limita- 
tions, recognized also that the Scotchman was a 
good business man. He set him to work next morn- 
ing drawing up a new contract. It called for 
further investment on his part of twenty-six thou- 
sand dollars to cover the purchase of a thousand 
head or more of cattle. Merrifield and Sylvane signed 
it and returned promptly to the Maltese Cross. ■ 



MRS. MADDOX 95 

Roosevelt remained behind. " Lincoln," he said, 
" there are two things I want to do. I want to 
get an antelope, and I want to get a buckskin 
suit." 

Lincoln thought that he could help him to both. 
Some twenty miles to the east lived a woman 
named Mrs. Maddox who had acquired some fame 
in the region by the vigorous way m which she 
had handled the old reprobate who was her husband ; 
and by her skill In making buckskin shirts. She 
was a dead shot, and it was said of her that even 
"Calamity Jane," Deadwood's "first lady," was 
forced " to yield the palm to Mrs. Maddox when 
it came to the use of a vocabulary which adequately 
searched every nook and cranny of a man's life 
from birth to ultimate damnation." 

They found her in her desolate, little mud-roofed 
hut on Sand Creek, a mile south of the old Keogh 
trail. She was living alone, having recently dis- 
missed her husband in summary fashion. It seems 
that he was a worthless devil, who, under the 
stimulus of some whiskey he had obtained from 
an outfit of Missouri " bull-whackers " who were 
driving freight to Deadwood, had picked a quarrel 
with his wife and attempted to beat her. She 
knocked him down with a stove-lid lifter and the 
" bull-whackers " bore him off, leaving the lady in 
full possession of the ranch. She now had a man 
named Crow Joe working for her, a slab-sided, 
shifty-eyed ne'er-do-well, who was suspected ot 
stealing horses on occasion. 



96 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

She measured Roosevelt for his suit^ and gave 
him and Lincoln a dinner that they remembered. A 
vigorous personality spoke out of her every action. 
Roosevelt regarded her with mingled amusement 
and awe. 

They found their antelope on the way home. 
They found two antelopes, in fact, but Roosevelt, 
who had been as cool as an Indian an instant before, 
was so elated when he saw the first drop to his 
rifle that he was totally incapacitated from aiming 
at the second when that animal, evidently be- 
wildered, began to run in circles scarcely twenty- 
five yards away. He had dropped his gun with a 
whoop, waving his arms over his head and crying, 
" I got him! I got him! " 

" Shoot the other one! " Lincoln called. 

Roosevelt burst into a laugh. ** I can't," he 
called back. " Not to save my life." 

They met at the side of the antelope. " This 
would not have seemed nearly so good if somebody 
had not been here to see it," Roosevelt exclaimed. 
" Do you know what I am going to do? I am going 
to make you a present of my shot-gun." 

Lincoln, being only sixteen, did not know exactly 
what to make of the generosity of this jubilant 
young man. It struck him that Roosevelt, in the 
excitement of the moment, was giving away a 
thing of great value and might regret it on sober 

^ The buckskin suit which was still doing service thirty years 
later, was made under the supervision of Mrs. Maddox by her niece, 
now Mrs. Olmstead, of Medora. 



THE MALTESE CROSS 97 

second thought. Lincoln replied that he could not 
accept the gift. It struck him that Roosevelt looked 
hurt for an instant. 

They dressed the antelope together, Roosevelt 
taking the position of humble pupil. The next 
day he returned alone to the Maltese Cross. 

He now entered with vigor into the life of a 
Dakota ranchman. The country was at its best in 
the clear June weather. The landscape in which 
the ranch-house was set had none of the forbidding 
desolateness of sharp bluff and scarred ravine that 
characterized the region surrounding Little Mis- 
souri. The door of the cabin looked out on a wide, 
semi-circular clearing covered with sagebrush, bor- 
dered on the east by a ring of buttes and grassy 
slopes, restful in their gray and green for eyes to 
gaze upon. Westward, not a quarter of a mile 
from the house, behind a hedge of cottonwoods, the 
river swung in a long circle at the foot of steep 
buttes crested with scoria. At the ends of the valley 
were glades of cottonwoods with grassy floors 
where deer hid a,mong the buckbrush by day, or at 
dusk fed silently or, at the sound of a step, bounded, 
erect and beautiful, off into deeper shelter. In an 
almost impenetrable tangle of bullberry bushes, 
whose hither edge was barely one hundred yards 
from the ranch-house, two fawns spent their days. 
They were extraordinarily tame, and in the evenings 
Roosevelt could frequently see them from the door 
as they came out to feed. Walking on the flat after 
sunset, or riding home when night had fallen, he 



ga ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

would run across them when it was too dark to 
make out anything but their flaunting white tails 
as they cantered out of the way. 

Roosevelt, who never did things by halves, took 
up his new activities as though they constituted 
the goal of a lifetime spent in a search for the ulti- 
mate good. Ranch-life was altogether novel to 
him; at no point had his work or his play touched 
any phase of it. He had ridden to hounds and was 
a fair but by no means a " fancy " rider. His 
experience in the Meadowbrook Hunt, however, 
had scarcely prepared him adequately for combat 
with the four-legged children of Satan that " mewed 
their mighty youth " on the wild ranges of the 
Bad Lands. 

" I have a perfect dread of bucking," he confided 
to an unseen public in a book which he began that 
summer, " and if I can help it I never get on a 
confirmed bucker." He could not always help it. 
Sylvane, who could ride anything in the Bad Lands, 
was wedded to the idea that any animal which by 
main force had been saddled and ridden was a 
" broke horse," and when Roosevelt would protest 
mildly concerning this or that particularly vicious 
animal, Sylvane would look at him in a grieved 
and altogether captivating way, saying, " Why, I 
call that a plumb gentle horse." 

" When Sylvane says that a horse is * plumb 
gentle,' " remarked Roosevelt, on one occasion, 
** then you want to look out." 

Sylvane and Merrifield were to start for the East 



ON THE ROUND-UP 99 

to purchase the additional cattle on the i8th of 
June, and Roosevelt had determined to set forth 
on the same day for a solitary camping-trip on 
the prairie. Into the three or four intervening days 
he crowded all the experiences they would hold. 

He managed to persuade Sylvane, somewhat 
against that individual's personal judgment (for 
Sylvane was suspicious of " dudes "), that he actu- 
ally intended " to carry his own pack." Sylvane 
found, to his surprise, that the " dude " learnt 
quickly. He showed Roosevelt once how to saddle 
his horse, and thereafter Roosevelt saddled his 
horses himself. Sylvane was relieved in spirit, and 
began to look with new eyes on the " four-eyed 
tenderfoot " who was entrusting a fortune to his 
care. 

There was no general round-up in the valley of 
the Little Missouri that spring of 1884, for the 
cattle had not had the opportunity to wander to 
any great distance, having been on the range, most 
of them, only a few months. The different " out- 
fits," however, held their own round-ups, at each 
of which a few hundred cattle might be gathered 
from the immediate vicinity, the calves " cut out " 
and roped and branded, and turned loose again to 
wander undisturbed until the " beef round-up " 
in the fall. 

At each of these round-ups, which might take 
place on any of a dozen bottoms up or down the 
river, the Maltese Cross " outfit " had to be repre- 
sented, and Sylvane and Merrifield and George 



100 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Myers were kept busy picking up their "strays." 
Roosevelt rode with them, as " boss " and at the 
same time as apprentice. It gave him an opportun- 
ity to get acquainted with his own men and with 
the cowpunchers of half a dozen other " outfits." 
He found the work stirring and the men singularly 
human and attractive. They were free and reckless 
spirits, who did not much care, it seemed, whether 
they lived or died; profane youngsters, who treated 
him with respect in spite of his appearance because 
they respected the men with whom he had associ- 
ated himself. They came from all parts of the Union 
and spoke a language all their own. 

" We'll throw over an' camp to-night at the mouth 
o' Knutson Creek," might run the round-up captain's 
orders. " Nighthaw^k'll be corralin' the cawy in the 
mornin' 'fore the white crow squeals, so we kin be 
cuttin' the day-herd on the bed-groun'. We'll make 
a side-cut o' the mavericks an' auction 'em off pronto 
soon's we git through." 

All that was ordinary conversation. When an 
occasion arose which seemed to demand a special 
effort, the talk around the " chuck-wagon " was 
so riddled with slang from all corners of the earth, so 
full of startling imagery, that a stranger might 
stare, bewildered, unable to extract a particle of 
meaning. And through it blazed such a continual 
shower of oaths, that were themselves sparks of 
Satanic poetry, that, in the phrase of one contem- 
plative cowpuncher, " absodarnnlutely had to be 
parted in the middle to hold an extra one." 



HASTEN FORWARD QUICKLY THERE! loi 

It was to ears attuned to this rich and racy music 
that Roosevelt came with the soft accents of his 
Harvard English. The cowboys bore up, showing 
the tenderfoot the frigid courtesy they kept for 
" dudes " who happened to be in company, which 
made it impolite or inexpedient to attempt " to 
make the sucker dance." 

It happened, however, that Roosevelt broke the 
camel's back. Some cows which had been rounded 
up with their calves made a sudden bolt out of the 
herd. Roosevelt attempted to head them back, 
but the wily cattle eluded him. 

"Hasten forward quickly there!" Roosevelt 
shouted to one of his men. 

The bounds of formal courtesy could not with- 
stand that. There was a roar of delight from the 
cowpunchers, and, instantly, the phrase became a 
part of the vocabulary of the Bad Lands. That 
day, and on many days thereafter when " Get a 
git on yuh ! " grew stale and " Head off them cattle ! " 
seemed done to death, he heard a cowpuncher 
shout, in a piping voice, " Hasten forward quickly 
there!" 

Roosevelt, in fact, was in those first days con- 
sidered somewhat of a joke. Beside Gregor Lang, 
forty miles to the south, he was the only man in the 
Bad Lands who wore glasses. Lang's glasses, more- 
over, were small and oval; Roosevelt's were large 
and round, making him, in the opinion of the cow- 
punchers, look very much like a curiously nervous 
and emphatic owl.- They called him " Four Eyes," 



102 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and spoke without too much respect, of " Roosen- 
felder." 

Merrifield rode to town with him one day and 
stopped at the Marquis's company store to see a 
man named Fisher, who had succeeded Edgar 
Haupt as local superintendent of the Northern 
Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, asking Fisher 
as he was departing whether he did not want to 
meet Roosevelt. Fisher had heard of the " four- 
eyed dude from New York " and heard something 
of his political reforming. He went outdoors with 
Merrifield, distinctly curious. 

Roosevelt was on horseback chatting with a 
group of cowboys, and the impression he made on 
Fisher was not such as to remove the natural 
prejudice of youth against " reformers " of any 
sort. What Fisher saw was " a slim, ansemic-look- 
ing young fellow dressed in the exaggerated style 
which new-comers on the frontier affected, and 
which was considered indisputable evidence of 
the rank tenderfoot." If any further proof of 
Roosevelt's status was needed, the great round 
glasses supplied it. Fisher made up his mind that 
he knew all he needed to know about the new 
owner of the Maltese Cross. 

No doubt he expressed his opinions to Merrifield. 
The taciturn hunter did not dispute his col^cllisions, 
but a day or two after he dropped in on Fisher again 
and said, " Get your horse and we'll take the young 
fellow over the old Sully Trail and try out his nerve. 
We'll let on that we're going for a little hunt." 



TRYING OUT THE TENDERFOOT 103 

Fisher agreed with glee in his heart. He knew the 
Sully Trail. It ran mainly along the sides of precip- 
itous buttes, southeast of Medora, and, being old 
and little used, had almost lost the little semblance 
it might originally have had of a path where four- 
footed creatures might pick their way with reason- 
able security. A recent rain had made the clay as 
slippery as asphalt in a drizzle. 

It occurred to Fisher that it was as truly wicked 
a trail as he had ever seen. Merrifield led the way; 
Fisher maneuvered for last place and secured it. 
In the most perilous places there was always some- 
thing about his saddle which needed adjustment, 
and he took care not to remount until the danger 
was behind them. Roosevelt did not dismount for 
any reason. He followed where Merrifield led, 
without comment. 

They came at last to a grassy slope that dipped 
at an angle of forty-five degrees to a dry creek-bed. 
" There goes a deer! " shouted Merrifield suddenly 
and started down the slope as fast as his horse 
could go. Roosevelt followed at the same speed. 
He and Merrifield arrived at the bottom at the 
identical moment; but with a difference. Roosevelt 
was still on his horse, but Merrifield and his pony 
had parted company about a hundred yards above 
the creek-bed and rolled the rest of the way. Fisher, 
who was conservative by nature, arrived in due 
course. 

Roosevelt pretended to be greatly annoyed. 
" Now see what you've done, Merrifield," he 



104 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

exclaimed as that individual, none the worse for his 
tumble, drew himself to his feet. " That deer is in 
Montana by this time." Then he burst into 
laughter. 

A suspicion took root in Fisher's mind that 
Merrifield had intended the hazardous performance 
as much for Fisher's education as for Roosevelt's. 
He was quite ready to admit that his first impres- 
sion had been imperfect. Meanwhile, he wondered 
whether the joke was on himself or on Merrifield. 
Certainly it was not on the tenderfoot. 

Roosevelt enjoyed it all with the relish of a 
gourmand at a feast cooked by the gods. 

Theodore Roosevelt, the young New York reformer 
[remarked the Bad Lands Cowboy], made us a very 
pleasant call Monday in full cowboy regalia. New 
York will certainly lose him for a time at least, as he is 
perfectly charmed with our free Western life and is 
now figuring on a trip into the Big Horn country. 

In a letter to his sister Anna, written from Medora, 
the middle of June, we have Roosevelt's own record 
of his reactions to his first experiences as an actual 
ranchman. " Bamie " or " Bye, "as he affectionately 
called her, was living in New York. She had taken 
his motherless little Alice under her protecting wing, 
and, since the disasters of February, had been half 
a mother to him also. 

Well, I have been having a glorious time here [he 
writes], and am well hardened now (I have just come in 
from spending thirteen hours in the saddle). For every 
day I have been here I have had my hands full. First 



A LETTER TO BAM IE 105 

and foremost, the cattle have done well, and I regard 
the outlook for making the business a success as being 
very hopeful. I shall buy a thousand more cattle and 
shall make it my regular business. In the autumn I shall 
bring out Sewall and Dow and put them on a ranch with 
very few cattle to start with, and in the course of a 
couple of years give them quite a little herd also. 

I have never been in better health than on this trip. 
I am in the saddle all day long either taking part in 
the round-up of the cattle, or else hunting antelope 
(I got one the other day; another good head for our 
famous hall). I am really attached to my two " factors," 
Ferris and Merrifield, they are very fine men. 

The country is growing on me, more and more; it 
has a curious, fantastic beauty of its own ; and as I own 
six or eight horses I have a fresh one every day and ride 
on a lope all day long. How sound I do sleep at night 
now! There is not much game, however; the cattle-men 
have crowded it out and only a few antelope and deer 
remain. I have shot a few jackrabbits and curlews, 
with the rifle ; and I also killed eight rattlesnakes. 

To-morrow my two men go East for the cattle; and 
I will start out alone to try my hand at finding my way 
over the prairie by myself, I intend to take a two 
months' trip in the fall, for hunting; and may, as 
politics look now, stay away over Election day; so I 
shall return now very soon, probably leaving here in a 
week. 

. On the following day Ferris and Merrifield started 
for the East, and Roosevelt set out on his solitary 
hunting trip, half to test out his own qualities as 
a frontiersman and half to replenish the larder. 

For the last week I have been fulfilling a boyish 
ambition of mine [he wrote to " Bamie " after his return 



io6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

to the Maltese Cross]; that is, I have been playing at 
frontier hunter in good earnest, having been off entirely 
alone, with my horse and rifle, on the prairie. I wanted 
to see if I could not do perfectly well without a guide, 
and I succeeded beyond my expectations, I shot a 
couple of antelope and a deer — and missed a great 
many more. I felt as absolutely free as a man could feel ; 
as you know, I do not mind loneliness; and I enjoyed 
the trip to the utmost. The only disagreeable incident 
was one day when it rained. Otherwise the w^eather was 
lovely, and every night I would lie wrapped up in my 
blanket looking at the stars till I fell asleep, in the cool 
air. The country has widely different aspects in different 
places ; one day I could canter hour after hour over the 
level green grass, or through miles of wild-rose thickets, 
all in bloom; on the next I would be amidst the savage 
desolation of the Bad Lands, with their dreary plateaus, 
fantastically shaped buttes, and deep, winding canyons. 
I enjoyed the trip greatly, and have never been in better 
health. 

George Myers was holding the fort at the Maltese 
Cross, building his four-mile fence, keeping an eye 
on the horses and cattle and acting as general 
factotum and cook. He was successful in every- 
thing except his cooking. Even that was excellent, 
except for an occasional and unaccountable lapse; 
but those lapses were dire. 

It happened that, on the day of his return to 
the semi-civilization of the Maltese Cross, Roosevelt 
intimated to George Myers that baking-powder 
biscuits would be altogether welcome. George was 
rather proud of his biscuits and set to work w^ith 
energy, adding an extra bit of baking powder from 



THE EMERALD BISCUITS 107 

the can on the shelf beside the stove to be sure that 
they would be light. The biscuits went into the 
oven looking as perfect as any biscuits which George 
had ever created. They came out a rich, emerald 
green. 

Roosevelt and George Myers stared at them, 
wondering what imp in the oven had worked a 
diabolical transformation. But investigation proved 
that there was no imp involved. It was merely 
that Sylvane or Merrifield, before departing, had 
casually dumped soda into the baking-powder can. 

Evidently Roosevelt thereupon decided that if 
accidents of that sort were liable to happen to 
George, he had better take charge of the culinary 
department himself. George was off on the range 
the following morning, and Roosevelt, who had 
stayed home to write letters, filled a kettle with 
dry rice, poured on what looked like a reasonable 
amount of water, and set it on the oven to cook. 
Somewhat to his surprise, the rice began to sweU, 
brimming over on the stove. He dipped out what 
seemed to him a sufficient quantity, and returned 
to his work. The smell of burning rice informed him 
that there was trouble in the wind. The kettle, he 
found, was brimming over again. He dipped out 
more rice. All morning long he was dipping out 
rice. By the time George returned, every bowl in 
the cabin, including the wash-basin, was filled with 
half-cooked rice. 

Roosevelt handed the control of the kitchen 
back to George Myers. , 



VI 

Once long ago an ocean lapped this hill, 
And where those vultures sail, ships sailed at will; 
Queer fishes cruised about without a harbor — 
I will maintain there's queer fish round here still. 

The Bad Lands Ruhdiyat 

Through the long days of that soft, green June, 
Roosevelt was making himself at home in his new 
and strange surroundings. A carpenter, whose name 
was the same as his trade, built him a bookcase 
out of scraps of lumber, and on the shelves of it he 
assembled old friends — Parkman and Irving and 
Hawthorne and Cooper and Lowell, " Ike Marvel's 
breezy pages and the quaint, pathetic character- 
sketches of the Southern writers — Cable, Crad- 
dock, Macon, Joel Chandler Harris, and sweet 
Sherwood Bonner." Wherever he went he carried 
some book or other about him, solid books as a rule, 
though he was not averse on occasion to what 
one cowpuncher, who later became superintendent 
of education in Medora, and is therefore to be re- 
garded as an authority, reproachfully described 
as " trash." He consumed the " trash," it seems, 
after a session of composition, which was laborious 
to him, and which set him to stalking to and fro 
over the floor of the cabin and up and down through 
the sagebrush behind it. 

He read and wrote in odd minutes, as his body 
required now and then a respite from the outdoor 



THE NEIGHBORS 109 

activities that filled his days; but in that first deep 
quaffing of the new life, the intervals out of the 
saddle were brief and given mainly to meals and 
sleep. As he plunged into books to extract from 
them whatever facts or philosophy they might hold 
which he needed to enrich his personality and his 
usefulness, so he plunged into the life of the Bad 
Lands seeking to comprehend the emotions and 
the mental processes, the personalities and the social 
conditions that made it what it was. With a warm 
humanity on which the shackles of social prejudice 
already hung loose, he moved with open eyes and 
an open heart among the men and women whom 
the winds of chance had blown together in the valley 
of the Little Missouri. 

They were an interesting and a diverse lot. 
Closest to the Maltese Cross, in point of situation, 
were the Batons, who had established themselves 
two years previously at an old stage station, five 
miles south of Little Missouri, on what had been the 
first mail route between Fort Abraham Lincoln and 
Fort Keogh. Custer had passed that way on his last, 
ill-fated expedition, and the ranch bore the name of 
the Custer Trail in memory of the little army that had 
camped beside it one night on the way to the Little 
Big Horn. The two-room shack of cottonwood logs 
and a dirt roof, which had been the station, was in- 
habited by calves and chickens who were kept in 
bounds by the stockade which only a little while 
before had served to keep the Indians at a distance. 

The four Eaton brothers were men of education 



no ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and family, who had suffered financial reverses 
and migrated from Pittsburgh, where they lived, 
to " make their fortunes," as the phrase went, in 
the Northwest. A wealthy Pennsylvanian named 
Huidekoper, a lover of good horses, backed Howard 
at the Custer Trail and another Easterner named 
Van Brunt started a second ranch with him, 
known as the " V-Eye," forty miles down the 
river at the mouth of Beaver Creek; a third, 
named " Chris " McGee, who was a somewhat 
smoky light in the murk of Pennsylvania politics, 
went into partnership with Charles, at another 
ranch six miles up Beaver. The Custer Trail was 
headquarters for them all, and at the same time 
for an endless procession of Eastern friends who 
came for the hunting. The Eatons kept open house. 
Travelers wrote about the hospitality that even 
strangers were certain to find there, and carried 
away with them the picture of Howard Eaton, 
" who sat his horse as though he were a centaur 
and looked a picturesque and noble figure with 
his clean-shaven cheeks, heavy drooping moustache, 
sombrero, blue shirt, and neckerchief with flaming 
ends." About the time Roosevelt arrived, friends 
who had availed themselves of the Eaton hospitality 
until they were in danger of losing their self-respect, 
had prevailed on the reluctant brothers to make 
" dude-ranching" a business. " Eaton's dudes " 
became a notable factor in the Bad Lands. You 
could raise a laugh about them at Bill Williams's 
saloon when nothing else could wake a smile. 



MRS. ROBERTS m 

One of the few women up or down the river 
was living that June at the Custer Trail. She was 
Margaret Roberts, the wife of the Eatons' foreman, 
a, jovial, garrulous woman, still under thirty, with 
hair that curled attractively and had a shimmer 
of gold in it. She was utterly fearless, and was 
bringing up numerous children, all girls, with a 
cool disregard of wild animals and wilder men, 
which, it was rumored shocked her relatives " back 
East." She had been brought up in Iowa, but ten 
horses could not have dragged her back. 

Four or five miles above the Maltese Cross lived 
a woman of a different sort who was greatly agitating 
the countryside, especially Mrs. Roberts. She had 
come to the Bad Lands with her husband and 
daughter since Roosevelt's previous visit, and es- 
tablished a ranch on what was known as " Tepee 
Bottom." Her husband, whose name, for the pur- 
poses of this narrative, shall be Cummins, had been 
sent to Dakota as ranch manager for a syndicate 
of Pittsburgh men, why, no one exactly knew, 
since he was a designer of stoves, and, so far as any 
one could find out, had never had the remotest 
experience with cattle. He was an excellent but 
ineffective little man, religiously inclined, and 
consequently dubbed " the Deacon." Nobody paid 
very much attention to him, least of all his wife. 
That lady had drawn the fire of Mrs. Roberts before 
she had been in the Bad Lands a week. She was 
a good woman, but captious, critical, complaining, 
pretentious. She had in her youth had social aspira- 



112 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDSJ 

tions which her husband and a little town in Penn- 
sylvania had been unable to gratify. She brought 
into her life in Dakota these vague, unsatisfied 
longings, and immediately set to work to remould 
the manners, customs, and characters of the com- 
munity a little nearer to her heart's desire. To 
such an attitude there was, of course, only one 
reaction possible; and she got it promptly. 

Mrs. Roberts, energetic, simple-hearted, vigorous, 
plain-spoken, was the only woman within a dozen 
miles, and it was not long before Mrs. Roberts 
hated Mrs. Cummins as Jeremiah hated Babylon. 
For Mrs. Cummins was bent on spreading " cul- 
ture," and Mrs. Roberts was determined that by 
no seeming acquiescence should it be spread over 
her. 

"Roosevelt was a great visitor," said Howard 
Eaton in after time. " When he first came out there, 
he was a quiet sort of a fellow, with not much to 
say to anybody, but the best kind of a mixer I ever 
saw." 

The Bad Lands no doubt required the ability 
to mix with all manner of men, for it was all manner 
of men that congregated there. Roosevelt evaded 
the saloons, but established friendly relations with 
the men who did not. When he rode to town for 
his mail or to make purchases at Joe Ferris's 
new store, he contracted the habit of stopping 
at the office of the Bad Lands Cowboy, where those 
who loved conversation more than whiskey had a 
way of foregathering. 



HELL- ROARING BILL JONES 113 

It was there that he came to know Hell-Roaring 
Bill Jones. 

Bill Jones was a personage in the Bad Lands. He 
was, in fact, more than that. He was (like Roosevelt 
himself) one of those rare beings who attain mythical 
proportions even in their lifetime and draw about 
themselves the legendry of their generation. Bill 
Jones was the type and symbol of the care-free 
negation of moral standards in the wild little towns 
of the frontier, and men talked of him with an awe 
which they scarcely exhibited toward any symbol 
of virtue and sobriety. He said things and he did 
things which even a tolerant observer, hardened 
to the aspect of life's seamy side, might have felt 
impelled to call depraved, and yet Bill Jones 
himself was not depraved. He was, like the com- 
munity in which he lived, " free an' easy." Moral- 
ity meant no more to him than grammar. He 
outraged the one as he outraged the other, without 
malice and without any sense of fundamental 
difference between himself and those who preferred 
to do neither. 

The air was full of tales of his extraordinary 
doings, for he was a fighter with pistols and with 
fists and had an ability as a '* butter" which was all 
his own and which he used with deadly effect. What 
his history had been was a secret which he illumi- 
nated only fitfully. It was rumored that he had been 
born in Ireland of rather good stock, and in the 
course of an argument with an uncle of his with whom 
he lived had knocked the uncle down. Whether he 



114 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

had killed him the rumors failed to tell, but the fact 
that Bill Jones had found it necessary " to dust " to 
America, under an assumed name, suggested several 
things. Being Inclined to violence, he naturally drifted 
to that part of the country where violence seemed to 
be least likely to have serious consequences. By a 
comic paradox, he joined the police force of Bis- 
marck. He casually mentioned the fact one day to 
Roosevelt, remarking that he had left the force 
because he " beat the Mayor over the head with 
his gun one day." 

"The Mayor, he didn't mind it," he added, 
" but the Superintendent of Police guessed I'd 
better resign." 

He was a striking-looking creature, a man who 
could turn dreams into nightmares, merely by his 
presence in them. He was rather short of stature, 
but stocky and powerfully built, with a tremendous 
chest and long, apelike arms, hung on a giant's 
shoulders. The neck was a brute's, and the square 
protruding jaw was in keeping with it. His lips 
were thin, his nose was hooked like a pirate's, and 
his keen black eyes gleamed from under the bushy 
black eyebrows like a grizzly's from a cave. He 
was not a thing of beauty, but, at the back of his 
unflinching gaze, humor in some spritely and satanic 
shape was always disporting itself, and there was, as 
Lincoln Lang described it, "a certain built-in look 
of droller>' in his face," which made one forget its 
hardness. ^ 

He was feared and, strange to say, he was loved 



A GOOD MAN FOR SASSING 115 

by the very men who feared him. For he was 
genial, and he could build a yarn that had the 
architectural completeness of a turreted castle, 
created out of smoke by some imaginative minstrel 
of hell. His language on all occasions was so fresh 
and startling that men had a way of following him 
about just to gather up the poppies and the night- 
shade of his exuberant conversation. 

As Will Dow later remarked about him, he was 
" an awfully good man to have on your side if 
there was any sassing to be done." 

Roosevelt was not one of those who fed on the 
malodorous stories which had gained for their author 
the further sobriquet of "Foul-mouthed Bill"; but 
he rather liked Bill Jones. ^ It happened one day, in 
the Cowboy office that June, that the genial repro- 
bate was holding forth in his best vein to an admir- 
ing group of cowpunchers. 

Roosevelt, who was inclined to be reserved in the 
company of his new associates, endured the flow of 
indescribable English as long as he could. Then, 
suddenly, in a pause, when the approving laughter 
had subsided, he began slowly to " skin his teeth." 

' "As I recall Bill, his stories were never half as bad as Frank 
[Vine's], for instance. Where he shone particularly was in excoriating 
those whom he did not like. In this connection he could — and did — 
use the worst expressions I have ever heard. He was a born cynic, 
who said his say in ' plain talk,' not ' langwidge.' For all that, he was 
filled to the neck with humor, and was a past-master in the art of re- 
partee, always in plain talk, remember. Explain it if you can. Bill 
was roundly hated by many because he had a way of talking straight 
truth. He had an uncanny knack of seeing behind the human scenery 
of the Bad Lands, and always told right out what he saw. That is 
why they were all afraid of him." — Lincoln Lang. 



ii6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" Bill Jones," he said, looking straight into the 
saturnine face, and speaking in a low, quiet voice, 
" I can't tell why in the world I like you, for j^ou're 
the nastiest-talking man I ever heard." 

Bill Jones's hand fell on his " six-shooter." The 
cowpunchers, knowing their man, expected shoot- 
ing. But Bill Jones did not shoot. For an instant 
the silence in the room was absolute. Gradually a 
sheepish look crept around the enormous and al- 
together hideous mouth of Bill Jones. " I don't 
belong to your outfit, Mr. Roosevelt," he said, " and 
I'm not beholden to you for anything. All the same, 
I don't mind saying that mebbe I've been a little 
too free with my mouth." 

They became friends from that day. 

If Roosevelt had tried to avoid the Marquis de 
Mores on his trips to the Marquis's budding me- 
tropolis in those June days, he would scarcely- have 
succeeded. The Marquis was the most vivid feature 
of the landscape in and about Medora. His personal 
appearance would have attracted attention in any 
crowd. The black, curly hair, the upturned mous- 
taches, waxed to needle-points, the heavy eyelids, 
the cool, arrogant eyes, made an impression which, 
against that primitive background, was not easily 
forgotten. His costume, moreover, was extraor- 
dinary to the point of the fantastic. It was the 
Marquis who always seemed to wear the widest 
sombrero, the loudest neckerchief. He went armed 
like a battleship. A correspondent of the Mandan 
Pioneer met him one afternoon returning from the 



' [THE MASTER OF MEDORA 117 

pursuit of a band of cattle which had stampeded. 
'' He was armed to the teeth," ran his report. '* A 
formidable-looking belt encircled his waist, in which 
was stuck a murderous-looking knife, a large navy 
revolver, and two rows of cartridges, and in his 
hand he carried a repeating rifle." 

A man who appeared thus dressed and accoutered 
would either be a master or a joke in a community 
like Medora. There were several reasons why he 
was never a joke. His money had something to do 
with it, but the real reason was, in the words of a 
contemporary, that " when it came to a showdown, 
the Marquis was always there." He completely 
dominated the life of Medora. His hand was on 
everything, and everything, it seemed, belonged 
to him. It was quite like " Puss in Boots." His 
town was really booming and was crowding its 
rival on the west bank completely out of the picture. 
The clatter of hammers on new buildings sounded, 
in the words of the editor of the Cowboy, " like a 
riveting machine." The slaughter-house had al- 
ready been expanded. From Chicago came a score or 
more of butchers, from the range came herds of 
cattle to be slaughtered. The side-track was filled 
with empty cars of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator 
Car Company, which, as they were loaded with 
dressed beef, were coupled on fast east-bound 
trains. The Marquis, talking to newspaper corre- 
spondents, was glowing in his accounts of the bloom- 
ing of his desert rose. He announced that it already 
had six hundred inhabitants. Another, calmer wit- 



ii8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

ness estimated fifty. The truth was probably a 
hundred, including the fly-by-nights. Unquestion- 
ably, they made noise enough for six hundred. 

The Marquis, pending the completion of his 
house, was living sumptuously in his private car, 
somewhat, it was rumored, to the annoyance of 
his father-in-law, who was said to see no connection 
between the rough life of a ranchman, in which the 
Marquis appeared to exult, and the palace on wheels 
in which he made his abode. But he was never 
snobbish. He had a friendly word for whoever 
drifted into his office, next to the company store, 
and generally " something for the snake-bite," 
as he called it, that was enough to bring benedic- 
tions to the lips of a cowpuncher whose dependence 
for stimulants was on Bill Williams's " Forty-Mile 
Red-Eye." To the men who worked for him he 
was extraordinarily generous, and he was without 
vindictiveness toward those who, since the killing 
of Luffsey, had openly or tacitly opposed him. He 
had a grudge against Gregor Lang,^ whose aversion 
to titles and all that went with them had not re- 
mained unexpressed during the year that had inter- 
vened since that fatal June 26th, but if he held any 
rancor toward Merriheld or the Ferrises, he did not 
reveal it. He was learning a great deal incidentally. 

1 "He held the grudge all right, and it may have been largely be- 
cause father sided against him in regard to the killing. But I think the 
main reason was because father refused to take any hand in bringing 
about a consolidation of interests. Pender was a tremendously rich man 
and had the ear of some of the richest men in England, such as the 
Duke of Sutherland and the Marquis of Tweeddale." — Lincoln Lang. 



THE MARQUIS'S STAGE-LINE 119 

Shortly before Roosevelt's arrival from the Chi- 
cago convention, the Marquis had stopped at the 
Maltese Cross one day for a chat with Sylvane. He 
was dilating on his projects, " spreading himself " 
on his dreams, but in his glowing vision of the 
future, he turned, for once, a momentary glance of 
calm analysis on the past. 

" If I had known a year ago what I know now," 
he said rather sadly, " Riley Luffsey would never 
have been killed." 

It was constantly being said of the Marquis 
that he was self-willed and incapable of taking 
advice. The charge was untrue. The difficulty 
was rather that he sought advice In the wrong 
quarters and lacked the judgment to weigh the 
counsel he received against the characters and aims 
of the men who gave it. He was constantly pouring 
out the tale of his grandiose plans to Tom and 
Dick and Abraham, asking for guidance in affairs 
of business and finance from men whose knowledge 
of business was limited to frontier barter and whose 
acquaintance with finance was of an altogether 
dubious and uneconomic nature. He was possessed, 
moreover, by the dangerous notion that those who 
spoke bluntly were, therefore, of necessity opposed 
to him and not worth regarding, while those who 
flattered him were his friends whose counsel he 
could trust. 

It was this attitude of mind which encumbered 
his project for a stage-line to the Black Hills with 
difficulties from the very start. The project itself 



120 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

was feasible. Deadwood could be reached only 
by stage from Pierre, a matter of three hundred 
miles. The distance to Medora was a hundred 
miles shorter. Millions of pounds of freight were 
accumulating for lack of proper transportation 
facilities to Deadwood. That hot little mining town, 
moreover, needed contact with the great trans- 
continental system, especially in view of the migra- 
tory movement, which had begun early in the year, 
of the miners from Deadwood and Lead to the new 
gold-fields in the Coeur d'Alenes in Idaho. 

Bill Williams and Jess Hogue, with the aid of 
the twenty-eight army mules which they had 
acquired in ways that invited research, had started 
a freight-line from Medora to Deadwood, but its 
service turned out to be spasmodic, depending 
somewhat on the state of Medora's thirst, on the 
number of " suckers " in town who had to be 
fleeced, and on the difficulty under which both 
Williams and Hogue seemed to suffer of keeping 
sober when they were released from their obvious 
duties in the saloon. There appeared to be every 
reason, therefore, why a stage-line connecting 
Deadwood with the Northern Pacific, carrying 
passengers, mail, and freight, and organized with 
sufficient capital, should succeed. 

Dickinson, forty miles east, was wildly agitating 
for such a line to run from that prosperous little 
community to the Black Hills. The Dickinson Press 
and the Bad Lands Cowboy competed in deriding 
each other's claims touching " the only feasible 



THE ROAD TO DEADWOOD 121 

route." The Cowboy said that the Medora line 
would be more direct. The Press agreed, but repHed 
that the country through which it would have to 
go was impassable even for an Indian on a pony. 
The Cowboy declared that " the Dickinson road 
strikes gumbo from the start"; and the Press 
with fine scorn answered, " This causes a smile 
to percolate our features. From our experience 
in the Bad Lands we know that after a slight rain 
a man can carry a whole quarter-section off on his 
boots, and we don't wear number twelves either." 
The Cowboy insisted that the Dickinson route " is 
at best a poor one and at certain seasons impass- 
able." The Press scorned to reply to this charge, 
remarking merely from the heights of its own 
eight months' seniority, " The Cowboy is young, 
and like a boy, going through a graveyard at night, 
is whistling to keep up courage." 

There the debate for the moment rested. But 
Dickinson, which unquestionably had the better 
route, lacked a Marquis. While the Press was 
printing the statements of army experts in support 
of its claims, de Mores was sending surveyors south 
to lay out his route. From Sully Creek they led 
it across the headwaters of the Heart River and the 
countless affluents of the Grand and the Cannonball, 
past Slim Buttes and the Cave Hills, across the 
valleys of the Bellefourche and the Moreau, two 
hundred and twqnty-five miles into the Black Hills 
and Deadwood. Deadwood gave the Marquis a 
public reception, hailing him as a benefactor of the 



122 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

race, and the Marquis, flushed and seeing visions, 
took a flying trip to New York and presented a 
petition to the directors of the Northern Pacific for 
a railroad from Medora to the Black Hills. 

The dream was perfect, and everybody (except 
the Dickinson Press) was happy. Nothing remained 
but to organize the stage company, buy the coaches, 
the horses and the freight outfits, improve the high- 
way, establish sixteen relay stations, and get started. 
And there, the real difficulties commenced. 

The Marquis, possibly feeling that it was the 
part of statesmanship to conciliate a rival, forgot 
apparently all other considerations and asked Bill 
Williams, the saloon-keeper, to undertake the 
organization of the stage-line. Williams assidu- 
ously disposed of the money which the Marquis 
put in his hands, but attained no perceptible 
results. The Marquis turned next to Bill Williams's 
partner in freighting and faro and asked Jess Hogue 
to take charge. Hogue, who was versatile and was 
as willing to cheat a man in one way as in another, 
consented and for a time neglected the card-tables 
of Williams's " liquor-parlor " to enter into negoti- 
ations for the construction of the line. He was a 
clever man and had had business experience of a 
sort, but his interest in the Deadwood stage-line 
did not reach beyond the immediate opportunity 
it offered of acquiring a substantial amount of the 
Marquis's money. He made a trip or two to Bis- 
marck and Deadwood ; he looked busy ; he promised 
great things; but nothing happened. The Marquis, 



i 



THE MARQUIS FINDS A MANAGER 123 

considerably poorer in pocket, deposed his second 
manager as he had deposed the first, and looked 
about for an honest man. 

One day Packard, setting up the Cowboy, was 
amazed to see the Marquis come dashing into his 
office. 

" I want you to put on the stage-line for me," he 
ejaculated. 

Packard looked at him. "But Marquis," he 
answered, " I never saw a stage or a stage-line. I 
don't know anything about it." 

" It makes no difference," cried the Frenchman. 
" You will not rob me." 

Packard admitted the probability of the last 
statement. They talked matters over. To Packard, 
who was not quite twenty-four, the prospect of 
running a stage-line began to look rather romantic. 
He set about to find out what stage-lines were made 
of, and went to Bismarck to study the legal docu- 
ment the Marquis's lawyers had drawn up. It 
specified, in brief, that A. T. Packard was to be sole 
owner of the Medora and Black Hills Stage and 
Forwarding Company when it should have paid for 
itself from its net earnings, which left nothing to 
be desired, especially as the total receipts from sales 
of building lots in Medora and elsewhere were to 
be considered part of the earnings. It w^as under- 
stood that the Marquis was to secure a mail contract 
from the Post-Office Department effective with 
the running of the first stage sometime in June. 
Packard attached his name to the document, and 



124 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

waited for the money which the Marquis had agreed 
to underwrite to set the organization in motion. 

Day after day he waited in vain. Weeks passed. 
In June began an exodus from the Black Hills to 
the Coeur d'Alenes that soon became a stampede. 
With an exasperation that he found it difficult to 
control, Packard heard of the thousands that were 
taking the roundabout journey by way of Pierre 
or Miles City. He might, he knew, be running 
every north-bound coach full from front to hind 
boot and from thorough-brace to roof-raij; and for 
once the Marquis might make some money. He 
pleaded for funds in person and by wire. But the 
Marquis, for the moment, did not have any funds 
to give him. 

Roosevelt and the Marquis were inevitably 
thrown together, for they were men whose tastes 
in many respects were similar. They were both 
fond of hunting, and fond also of books, and the 
Marquis, who was rather solitary in his grandeur and 
possibly a bit lonely, jumped at the opportunity 
Roosevelt's presence in Medora offered for com- 
panionship with his own kind. Roosevelt did not 
like him. He recognized, no doubt, that if any 
cleavage should come in the community to which 
they both belonged, they would, in all probability, 
not be fpund on the same side. 



VII 

An oath had come between us — I was paid by Law and Order; 

He was outlaw, rustler, killer — so the border whisper ran; 

Left his word in Caliente that he'd cross the Rio border — 

Call me coward? But I hailed him — "Riding close to daylight, Dan!" 

Just a hair and he'd have got me, but my voice, and not the warning, 
Caught his hand and held him steady; then he nodded, spoke my name. 
Reined his pony round and fanned it in the bright and silent mornmg. 
Back across the sunlit Rio up the trail on which he came. 

Henry Herbert Knibbs 

It was already plain that there were in fact two 
distinct groups along the valley of the Little Mis- 
souri. There are always two groups in any com- 
munity (short of heaven); and the fact that in 
the Bad Lands there was a law-abiding element, 
and another element whose main interest in law 
was in the contemplation of its fragments, would 
not be worth remarking if it had not happened 
that the Marquis had allowed himself to be ma- 
neuvered into a position in which he appeared, 
and in which in fact he was, the protector of the 
disciples of violence. This was due partly to 
Maunders's astute manipulations, but largely also 
to the obsession by which apparently he was seized 
that he was the lord of the manor in the style of 
the ancien regime, not to be bothered in his benefi- 
cent despotism with the restrictions that kept the 
common man in his place. As a foreigner he natu- 
rally cared little for the political development of 
the region; as long as his own possessions, therefore, 



126 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

were not tampered with, he was not greatly dis- 
turbed by any depredations which his neighbors 
might suffer. He employed hands without number; 
he seemed to believe any " fool lie " a man felt 
inclined to tell him; he distributed blankets, 
saddles and spurs. Naturally, Maunders clung to 
him like a leech with his train of lawbreakers about 
him. 

The immunity which Maunders enjoyed and 
radiated over his followers was only one factor of 
many in perpetuating the lawlessness for which 
the Bad Lands had for years been famous. Geog- 
raphy favored the criminal along the Little Mis- 
souri. Montana was a step or two to the west, 
Wyoming was a haven of refuge to the southwest, 
Canada was within easy reach to the north. A 
needle in a haystack, moreover, was less difficult 
to lay one's finger upon than a " two-gun man " 
tucked away in one of a thousand ravines, scarred 
with washouts and filled with buckbrush, in the 
broken country west of Bullion Butte. 

Western Dakota was sanctuary, and from every 
direction of the compass knaves of varying degrees 
of iniquity and misguided ability came to enjoy it. 
There was no law in the Bad Lands but " six- 
shooter law." The days were reasonably orderly, 
for there were " jobs " for every one; but the nights 
were wild. There was not much diversion of an up- 
lifting sort in Medora that June of 1884. There 
was not even an '' op'ry house." Butchers and 
cowboys, carpenters and laborers, adventurous 



THE GAYETY OF MEDORA 127 

young college graduates and younger sons of English 
noblemen, drank and gambled and shouted and 
" shot up the town together " with " horse- rustlers " 
and faro-dealers and " bad men " with notches 
on their guns. " Two-gun men " appeared from 
God-knows-whence, generally well supplied with 
money, and disappeared, the Lord knew whither, 
appearing elsewhere, possibly, with a band of horses 
whose brands had melted away under the appli- 
cation of a red-hot frying-pan, or suffered a sea- 
change at the touch of a " running iron." Again 
they came to Medora, and again they disappeared. 
The horse-market was brisk at Medora, though 
only the elect knew where it was or who bought 
and sold or from what frantic owner, two hundred 
miles to the north or south, the horses had been 
spirited away. 

It was a gay life, as Packard remarked. 

The " gayety " was obvious even to the most 
casual traveler whose train stopped for three noisy 
minutes at the Medora " depot." " Dutch Wanni- 
gan," when he remarked that " seeing the trains 
come in was all the scenery we had," plumbed the 
depths of Medora's hunger " for something to 
happen." A train (even a freight) came to stand 
for excitement, not because of any diversion it 
brought of itself out of a world of " dudes " and 
police-officers, but because of the deviltry it never 
failed to inspire in certain leading citizens of Medora. 

For Medora had a regular reception committee, 
whose membership varied, but included always 



128 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the most intoxicated cowpunchers who happened 
to be in town. Its leading spirits were Bill WilHams, 
the saloon-keeper, Van Zander, the wayward but 
attractive son of a Dutch patrician, and his bosom 
friend, Hell- Roaring Bill Jones; and if they were 
fertile in invention, they were no less energetic in 
carrying their inventions into execution. To shoot 
over the roofs of the cars was a regular pastime, to 
shoot through the windows was not unusual, but 
it was a genius who thought of the notion of crawling 
under the dining-car and shooting through the floor. 
He scattered the scrambled eggs which the negro 
waiter was carrying, but did no other damage. 
These general salvos of greeting. Bill Jones, Bill 
Williams, and the millionaire's son from Rotterdam 
were accustomed to vary by specific attention to 
passengers walking up and down the platform. 

It happened one day that an old man in a derby 
hat stepped off the train for a bit of an airing while 
the engine was taking water. Bill Jones, spying the 
hat, gave an indignant exclamation and promptly 
shot it off the man's head. The terrified owner hur- 
ried into the train, leaving the brim behind. 

" Come back, come back! " shouted Bill Jones, 
" we don't want the blinkety-blank thing in 
Medora." 

The old man, terrified, looked into Bill Jones's 
sinister face. He found no relenting there. Deeply 
humiliated, he walked over to where the battered 
brim lay, picked it up, and reentered the train. 

Medora, meanwhile, was acquiring a reputation 



HOLOCAUST 129 

for iniquity with overland tourists which the cow- 
boys felt in duty bound to live up to. For a time 
the trains stopped both at Medora and Little 
Missouri. On one occasion, as the engine was taking 
water at the wicked little hamlet on the west bank, 
the passengers in the sleeping-car, which was 
standing opposite the Pyramid Park Hotel, heard 
shots, evidently fired in the hotel. They were 
horrified a minute later to see a man, apparently 
dead, being carried out of the front door and 
around the side of the hotel to the rear. A minute 
later another volley was heard, and another " dead " 
man was seen being carried out. It was a holocaust 
before the train finally drew out of the station, 
bearing away a car-full of gasping " dudes." 

They did not know that it was the same man who 
was being carried round and round, and only the 
wise ones surmised that the shooting was a volley 
fired over the " corpse " every time the " pro- 
cession " passed the bar. 

All this was very diverting and did harm to 
nobody. Roosevelt himself, no doubt, took huge 
satisfaction in it. But there were aspects of 
Medora's disregard for the conventions which were 
rather more serious. If you possessed anything of 
value, you carried it about with you if you expected 
to find it when you wanted it. You studied the 
ways of itinerant butchers with much attention, 
and if you had any cattle of your own, you kept an 
eye on the comings and goings of everybody who 
sold beef or veal. The annoying element in all this 



130 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

vigilance, however, was that, even if you could 
point your finger at the man who had robbed you, 
it did not profit you much unless you were ready 
to shoot him. A traveling salesman, whose baggage 
had been looted in Medora, swore out a warrant in 
Morton County, a hundred and fifty miles to the 
east. The Morton County sheriff came to serve 
the warrant, but the warrant remained in his pocket. 
He was " close-herded " in the sagebrush across the 
track from the "depot " by the greater part of the 
male population, on the general principle that an 
of^cer of the law was out of place in Medora what- 
ever his mission might be; and put on board the 
next train going east. 

In all the turmoil, the Marquis was in his element. 
He was never a participant in the hilarity and he 
was never known to " take a drink " except the 
wine he drank with his meals. He kept his distance 
and his dignity. But he regarded the lawlessness 
merely as part of frontier life, and took no steps to 
stop it. Roosevelt was too young and untested a 
member of the community to exert any open 
influence during those first weeks of his active life 
in the Bad Lands. It remained for the ex-baseball 
player, the putative owner of a stage-line that re- 
fused to materialize, to give the tempestuous little 
community its first faint notion of the benefits of 
order, 

Packard, as editor of the Bad Lmids Cowboy, 
had, in a manner entirely out of proportion ^o his 
personal force, or the personal force that any other 




A. T. PACKARD 



.' A 



c 


■' ',i 







■.'^ f. 




OFFICE OF THE 'BAD LANDS COWBOY" 



i 



i 



INFLUENCE OF THE COWBOY 131 

man except the most notable might have brought to 
bear, been a civihzing influence from the beginning. 
The train that brought his presses from the East 
brought civihzation with it, a somewhat shy and 
wraithHke civihzation, but yet a thing made in the 
image and containing in itself the germ of that 
spirit which is the antithesis of barbarism, based 
on force, being itself the visible expression of the 
potency of ideas. The Bad Lands Cowboy brought 
the first tenuous foreshadowing of democratic 
government to the banks of the Little Missouri, 
inasmuch as it was an organ which could mould 
public opinion and through which public opinion 
might find articulation. It was thus that a young- 
ster, not a year out of college, became, in a sense, 
the first representative of the American idea in the 
Marquis de Mores's feudal appanage. 

Packard was extraordinarily well fitted not only 
to be a frontier editor, but to be 3. frontier editor 
in Medora. His college education gave him a point 
of contact with the Marquis which most of the other 
citizens of the Bad Lands lacked; his independence 
of spirit, on the other hand, kept him from becoming 
the Frenchman's tool. He was altogether fearless, 
he was a crack shot and a good rider, and he was 
not without effectiveness with his fists. But he 
was also tactful and tolerant; and he shared, and 
the cowboys knew he shared, their love of the open 
country and the untrammeled ways of the frontier. 
Besides, he had a sense of humor, which, in Medora 
in the spring of 1884, was better than great riches. 



132 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The Cowboy was Packard and Packard was the 
Cowboy. He printed what he pleased, dictating 
his editorials, as it were, " to the machine," he 
himself being the machine translating ideas into 
type as they came. His personal responsibility was 
absolute. There was no one behind whom he could 
hide. If any one objected to any statement in 
Medora's weekly newspaper, he knew whom to 
reproach. '' Every printed word," said Packard, a 
long time after, '' bore my brand. There were no 
mavericks in the Bad La?ids Cowboy articles. There 
was no libel law; no law of any kind except six- 
shooter rights. And I was the only man who never 
carried a six-shooter." 

To a courageous man, editing a frontier paper 
was an adventure which had thrills which editors 
in civilized communities never knew. Packard 
spoke his mind freely. Medora gasped a little. 
Packard expressed his belief that a drunken man 
who kills, or commits any other crime, should be 
punished for the crime and also for getting drunk, 
and then there was trouble; for the theory of the 
frontier was that a man who was drunk was not 
responsible for what he did, and accidents which 
happened while he was in that condition, though 
unfortunate, were to be classed, not with crimes, 
but with tornadoes and hailstorms and thunder 
bolts, rather as " acts of God." The general 
expression of the editor's opposition to this amiable 
theory brought only rumblings, but the specific 
applications brought indignant citizens with six- 



MOULDING PUBLIC OPINION 133 

shooters. Packard had occasion to note the merits 
as a lethal weapon of the iron " side-stick " with 
which he locked his type forms. It revealed itself 
as more potent than a six-shooter, and a carving- 
knife was not in a class with it; as he proved to the 
satisfaction of all concerned when a drunken 
butcher, who attempted to cut a Chinaman into 
fragments, came to the Cowboy office, "to forestall 
adverse comment in the next issue." 

Packard was amused to note how much his 
ability to defend himself simplified the problem 
of moulding public opinion in Medora. 

The law-abiding ranchmen along the Little 
Missouri, who found a spokesman in the editor of 
the Cowboy, recognized that what the Bad Lands 
needed was government, government with a club 
if possible, but in any event something from which 
a club could be developed. But the elements of 
disorder, which had been repulsed when they had 
suggested the organization of Billings County a 
year previous, now vigorously resisted organization 
when the impetus came from the men who had 
blocked their efforts. But the Cowboy fought val- 
iantly, and the Dickinson Press in its own way did 
what it could to help. 

Medora is clamoring for a county organization in 
Billings County [the editor reported.] We hope they 
will get it. If there is any place along the line that needs 
a criminal court and a jail it is Medora. Four-fifths of 
the business before our justice of the peace comes from 
Billings County. 



134 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

A week later, the Press reported that the county 
was about to be organized and that John C. Fisher 
and A. T. Packard were to be two out of the three 
county commissioners. Then something happened. 
What it was is shrouded in mystery. Possibly the 
Marquis, who had never been acquitted by a jury 
of the killing of Riley Luffsey, decided at the last 
minute that, in case the indictment, which was hov- 
ering over him like an evil bird, should suddenly 
plunge and strike, he would stand a better chance 
away from Medora than in it. A word from him 
to Maunders and from Maunders to his "gang" 
would unquestionably have served to bring about 
the organization of the county; a word spoken 
against the move would also have served effectually 
to block it. There was, however, a certain opposi- 
tion to the movement for organization on the part 
of the most sober elements of the population. 
Some of the older ranchmen suggested to Packard 
and to Fisher that they count noses. They did so, 
and the result was not encouraging. Doubtless 
they might organize the county, but the control 
of it would pass into the hands of the crooked. 
Whatever causes lay behind the sudden evaporation 
of the project, the fact stands that for the time be- 
ing the Bad Lands remained under the easy-going 
despotism of the Marquis de Mores and his prime 
minister, Jake Maunders, unhampered and un- 
illumined by the impertinences of democracy. 

The Dickinson Press had truth on its side when 
it uttered its wail that Medora needed housing 



THE BASTILE 135 

facilities for the unruly. Medora had never had a 
jail. Little Missouri had had an eight by ten shack 
which one man, who knew some history, christened 
" the Bastile," and which was used as a sort of 
convalescent hospital for men who were too drunk 
to distinguish between their friends and other 
citizens when they started shooting. But a sudden 
disaster had overtaken the Bastile one day when a 
man called Black Jack had come into Little Mis- 
souri on a wrecking train. He had a reputation 
that extended from Mandan to Miles City for his 
ability to carry untold quantities of whiskey without 
showing signs of Intoxication; but Little Missouri 
proved his undoing. The " jag " he developed was 
something phenomenal, and he was finally locked 
up in the Bastile by common consent. The train 
crew, looking for Black Jack at three in the morning, 
located him after much searching. But the Bastile 
had been built by the soldiers and resisted their 
efforts to break in. Thereupon they threw a line 
about the shack and with the engine hauled It to the 
side of a flatcar attached to the train. Then with 
a derrick they hoisted Little Missouri's only de- 
pository for the helpless inebriate on the flatcar 
and departed westward. At their leisure they 
chopped Black Jack out of his confinement. They 
dumped the Bastile over the embankment some- 
where a mile west of town. 

The collapse of the efforts of the champions of 
order to organize the county left the problem of 
dealing with the lawlessness that was rampant, as 



136 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

before, entirely to the impulse of outraged individ- 
uals. There was no court, no officer of the law. 
Each man was a law unto himself, and settled his 
own quarrels. The wonder, under such circum- 
stances, is not that there was so much bloodshed, 
but that there was so little. There was, after all, 
virtue in the anarchy of the frontier. Personal 
responsibility was a powerful curb-bit. 

In the Bad Lands, in June, 1884, there was a 
solid minority of law-abiding citizens who could 
be depended on in any crisis. There was a larger 
number who could be expected as a rule to stand 
with the angels, but who had friendly dealings 
with the outlaws and were open to suspicion. Then 
there was the indeterminate and increasing number 
of men whose sources of revenue were secret, who 
toiled not, but were known to make sudden journeys 
from which they returned with fat " rolls " in their 
pockets. It was to curb this sinister third group 
that Packard had attempted to organize the county. 
Failing in that project, he issued a call for a " mass 
meeting." 

The meeting was duly held, and, if it resembled 
the conference of a committee more than a popular 
uprising, that was due mainly to the fact that a 
careful census taken by the editor of the Cowboy 
revealed that in the whole of Billings County, 
which included in its limits at that time a territory 
the size of Massachusetts, there lived exactly one 
hundred and twenty- two males and twenty-seven 
females. There was a certain hesitancy on the part 



THE MASS MEETING 137 

even of the law-abiding to assert too loudly their 
opposition to the light-triggered elements which 
were " frisking " their horses and cattle. The 
" mass meeting " voted, in general, that order was 
preferable to disorder and adjourned, after unani- 
mously electing Packard chief of police (with no 
police to be chief of) and the Marquis de Mores 
head of the fire department (which did not exist). 

" I have always felt there was something I did 
not know back of that meeting," said Packard 
afterward. " I think Roosevelt started it, as he 
and I were agreed the smaller ranches were losing 
enough cattle and horses to make the difference 
between profit and loss. It was a constant topic of 
conversation among the recognized law-and-order 
men and all of us agreed the thieves must be checked. 
I don't even remember how the decision came 
about to hold the meeting. It was decided to hold 
it, however, and I gave the notice wide publicity 
in the Bad Lands Cowboy. I was never more sur- 
prised than when Merrifield nominated me for 
chief of police. Merrifield was a partner with 
Roosevelt and the Ferris boys In the Chimney Butte 
Ranch and I have always thought he and Roosevelt 
had agreed beforehand to nominate me." 

Packard took up his duties, somewhat vague in 
his mind concerning what was expected of him. 
There was no organization behind him, no executive 
committee to give him instructions. With a large 
liberality, characteristic of the frontier, the " mass 
meeting " had left to his own discretion the demar- 



138 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

cation of his " authority " and the manner of its 
assertion. His "authority," in fact, was a gigantic 
bluff, but he was not one to let so immaterial a 
detail weaken his nerve. 

The fire department died still-born; but the 
police force promptly asserted itself. Packard had 
decided to " work on the transients " first, for he 
could persuade them, better than he could the 
residents, that he had an organization behind him, 
with masks and a rope. From the start he made it 
a point not to mix openly in any " altercation," 
where he could avoid it, for the simple reason that 
the actual fighting was in most cases done by 
professional " bad men," and the death of either 
party to the duel, or both, was considered a source 
of jubilation rather than of regret. He devoted his 
attention mainly to those " floaters " whom he 
suspected of being in league with the outlaws, or 
who, by their recklessness with firearms, made 
themselves a public nuisance. He seldom, if ever, 
made an arrest. He merely drew his man aside 
and told him that " it had been decided " that he 
should leave town at once and never again appear 
in the round-up district of the Bad Lands. In no 
case was his warning disobeyed. On the few occa- 
sions when it was necessary for him to interfere 
publicly, there were always friends of order in the 
neighborhood to help him seal the exile in a box 
car and ship him east or west on the next freight. 
A number of hilarious disciples of justice varied 
this proceeding one evening by breaking open the 



THE THIEVES 139 

car in which one of Packard's prisoners lay confined 
and tying him to the cowcatcher of a train which 
had just arrived. Word came back from Glendive 
at midnight that the prisoner had reached his 
destination in safety, though somewhat breathless, 
owing to the fact that the cowcatcher " had picked 
up a Texas steer on the way." 

Packard's activity as chief of police had value 
in keeping the " floaters " in something resembling 
order; but it scarcely touched the main problem 
with which the law-abiding ranchmen had to con- 
tend, which was the extinction of the horse and 
cattle thieves. 

To an extraordinary extent these thieves possessed 
the Bad Lands. They were here, there, and every- 
where, sinister, intangible shadows, weaving in and 
out of the bright-colored fabric of frontier life. 
They were in every saloon and in almost every 
ranch-house. They rode on the round-ups, they 
sat around the camp-fire with the cowpunchers. 
Some of the most capable ranchmen were in league 
with them, bankers east and west along the railroad 
were hand in glove with them. A man scarcely 
dared denounce the thieves to his best friend for 
fear his friend might be one of them. 

There were countless small bands which operated 
in western Dakota, eastern Montana, and north- 
western Wyoming, each loosely organized as a 
unit, yet all bound together in the tacit fellow- 
ship of outlawry. The most tangible bond among 
them was that they all bought each other's stolen 



140 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

horses, and were all directors of the same " under- 
ground railway." Together they constituted not 
a band, but a " system," that had its tentacles 
in every horse and cattle " outfit" in the Bad 
Lands. 

As far as the system had a head at all, that head 
was a man named Axelby. Other men stole a horse 
here or there, but Axelby stole whole herds of fifty 
and a hundred at one daring sweep. He was in 
appearance a typical robber chieftain, a picturesque 
devil with piercing black eyes and a genius for 
organization and leadership. In addition to his im- 
mediate band, scores of men whom he never saw, 
and who were scattered over a territory greater than 
New England, served him with absolute fidelity. 
They were most of them saloon-keepers, gamblers, 
and men who by their prominence in the community 
would be unsuspected ; and there were among them 
more than a few ranchmen who were not averse 
to buying horses under the market price. With 
the aid of these men, Axelby created his smooth- 
running " underground railway " from the Big Horn 
Mountains and the Black Hills north through 
Wyoming, Dakota, and Montana. His agents in 
the settlements performed the ofhce of spies, keep- 
ing him in touch with opportunities to operate on 
a large scale; and the ranchmen kept open the 
" underground " route by means of which he was 
able to spirit his great herds of horses across the 
Canadian line. 

By the spring of 1884, Axelby 's fame had reached 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 141 

the East, and even the New York Sun gave him a 
column: 

Mr. Axelby is said to be at the head of a trusty band 
as fearless and as lawless as himself. The Little Missouri 
and Powder River districts are the theater of his opera- 
tions. An Indian is Mr. Axelby's detestation. He kills 
him at sight if he can. He considers that Indians have 
no right to own ponies and he takes their ponies when- 
ever he can. Mr. Axelby has repeatedly announced his 
determination not to be taken alive. The men of the 
frontier say he bears a charmed life, and the hairbreadth 
'scapes of which they have made him the hero are nu- 
merous and of the wildest stamp. 

During the preceding February, Axelby and his 
band had had a clash with the Federal authorities, 
which had created an enormous sensation up and 
down the Little Missouri, but had settled nothing 
so far as the horse-thieves were concerned. In the 
Bad Lands the thieves became daily more pestifer- 
ous. Two brothers named Smith and two others 
called " Big Jack " and " Little Jack " conducted 
the major operations in Billings County. They had 
their cabin in a coulee west of the Big Ox Bow, 
forty miles south of Medora, in the wildest part of 
the Bad Lands, and " worked the country " from 
there north and south. They seldom stole from 
white men, recognizing the advisability of not 
irritating their neighbors too much, but drove off 
Indian ponies in herds. Their custom was to steal 
Sioux horses from one of the reservations, keep 
them in the Scoria Hills a month or more until 



142 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

all danger of pursuit was over, and then drive them 
north over the prairie between Belfield and Medora, 
through the Killdeer Mountains to the north- 
eastern part of the Territory. There they would 
steal other horses from the Grosventres Indians, 
and drive them to their cache in the Scoria Hills 
whence they could emerge with them at their good 
pleasure and sell them at Pierre. There had been 
other " underground railways," but this had a 
charm of its own, for it " carried freight " both ways. 
Occasionally the thieves succeeded in selling horses 
to the identical Indians they had originally robbed. 
The efficiency of it all was in its way magnificent. 
Through the record of thievery up and down the 
river, that spring of 1884, the shadow of Jake 
Maunders slips in and out, making no noise and 
leaving no footprints. It was rumored that when a 
sheriff or a United States marshal from somewhere 
drifted into Medora, Maunders would ride south 
in the dead of night to the Big Ox Bow and give 
the thieves the warning; and ride north again 
and be back in his own shack before dawn. It 
was rumored, further, that when the thieves had 
horses to sell, Maunders had " first pick." His 
own nephew was said to be a confederate of Big 
Jack. One day that spring, the Jacks and Maun- 
ders's nephew, driving a herd of trail-weary horses, 
stopped for a night at Lang's Sage Bottom camp. 
They told Lincoln Lang that they had bought the 
horses in Wyoming. Maunders sold the herd him- 
self, and the news that came from the south that 



HELPLESSNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS 143 

the herd had been stolen made no perceptible 
ruffle. The ranchmen had enough difficulty pre- 
serving their own property and were not making 
any altruistic efforts to protect the horses of ranch- 
men two hundred miles away. Maunders con- 
tinued to flourish. From Deadwood came rumors 
that Joe Morrill, the deputy marshal, was carrying 
on a business not dissimilar to that which was mak- 
ing Maunders rich in Medora. 

When even the officers of the law were in league 
with the thieves or afraid of them, there was little 
that the individual could do except pocket his 
losses with as good grace as possible and keep his 
mouth shut. The " system " tolerated no inter- 
ference with its mechanism. 

Fisher, smarting under the theft of six of the 
" top " horses from the Marquis de Mores's " out- 
fit " called one of the cowboys one day into his 
office. His name was Pierce Bolan, and Fisher knew 
him to be not only absolutely trustworthy, but un- 
usually alert. 

" You're out on the range all the time," said 
Fisher. " Can't you give me a line on the fellows 
who are getting away with our horses? " 

The cowboy hesitated and shook his head. " If 
I knew," he answered, " I wouldn't dare tell you. 
My toes would be turned up the first time I showed 
up on the range." 

" What in are we going to do? " 

" Why, treat the thieves considerate," said Bolan. 
** Don't get 'em sore on you. When one of them 



144 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

comes up and wants the loan of a horse, why, let 
him have it." 

Fisher turned to the foreman of one of the largest 
" outfits " for advice and received a similar answer. 
The reputable stockmen were very much in the 
minority, it seemed, and wise men treated the 
thieves with " consideration " and called it insur- 
ance. 

There were ranchmen, however, who were too 
high-spirited to tolerate the payment of such trib- 
ute in their behalf, and too interested in the future 
of the region as a part of the American common- 
wealth to be willing to temporize with outlaws. 
Roosevelt was one of them, in the valley of the 
Little Missouri. Another, across the Montana 
border in the valley of the Yellowstone, was Gran- 
ville Stuart. 

Stuart was a " forty-niner," who had crossed 
the continent in a prairie-schooner as a boy and 
had drifted into Virginia City in the days of its 
hot youth. He was a man of iron nerve, and when 
the time came for a law-abiding minority to rise 
against a horde of thieves and desperadoes, he nat- 
urally became one of the leaders. He played an 
important part in the extermination of the famous 
Plummer band of outlaws in the early sixties, and 
was generally regarded as one of the most notable 
figures in Montana Territory. 

At the meeting of the Montana Stockgrowers' 
Association, at Miles City in April, there had 
been much discussion of the depredations of the 



GRANVILLE STUART 145 

horse and cattle thieves, which were actually threat- 
ening to destroy the cattle industry. The officers of 
the law had been helpless, or worse, in dealing with 
the situation, and the majority of the cattlemen at 
the convention were in favor of raising a small 
army of cowboys and " raiding the country." 

Stuart, who was president of the Association, 
fought the project almost single-handed. He pointed 
out that the " rustlers " were well organized and 
strongly fortified, each cabin, in fact, constituting 
a miniature fortress. There was not one of them 
who was not a dead shot and all were armed with 
the latest model firearms and had an abundance 
of ammunition. No " general clean-up " on a large 
scale could, Stuart contended, be successfully 
carried through. The first news of such a project 
would put the thieves on their guard, many lives 
would unnecessarily be sacrificed, and the law, in 
the last analysis, would be on the side of the 
" rustlers." 

The older stockmen growled and the younger 
stockmen protested, intimating that Stuart was a 
coward; but his counsel prevailed. A number of 
them, who " stood in " with the thieves in the hope 
of thus buying immunity, carried the report of 
the meeting to the outlaws. The " rustlers " were 
jubilant and settled down to what promised to be 
a year of undisturbed " operations." 

Stuart himself, however, had long been convinced 
that drastic action against the thieves must be 
taken; and had quietly formulated his plan. When 



146 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the spring round-up was over, late in June, he called 
a half-dozen representative ranchmen from both 
sides of the Dakota-Montana border together at his 
ranch, and presented his project. It was promptly 
accepted, and Stuart himself was put in charge of 
its execution. 

Less than ten men in the whole Northwest knew 
of the movement that was gradually taking form 
under the direction of the patriarchal fighting 
man from Fergus County; but the Marquis de 
Mores was one of those men. He told Roosevelt. 
Stuart's plan, it seems, was to organize the most 
solid and reputable ranchmen in western Montana 
into a company of vigilantes similar to the company 
which had wiped out the Plummer band twenty 
years previous. Groups of indignant citizens who 
called themselves vigilantes had from time to time 
attempted to conduct what were popularly known as 
" necktie parties," but they had failed in almost 
every case to catch their man, for the reason that 
the publicity attending the organization had given 
the outlaws ample warning of their peril. It was 
Stuart's plan to organize in absolute secrecy, and 
fall on the horse-thieves like a bolt from the blue. 

The raid was planned for late in July. It was 
probably during the last days of June that Roosevelt 
heard of it. With him, when the Marquis unfolded 
the project to him, was a young Englishman named 
Jameson (brother of another Jameson who was 
many years later to stir the world with a raid of 
another sort). Roosevelt and young Jameson, who 



THE THREE ARGONAUTS 147 

shared a hearty dislike of seeing lawbreakers 
triumphant, and were neither of them averse to a 
little danger in confounding the public enemy, 
announced with one accord that they intended to 
join Stuart's vigilantes. The Marquis had already 
made up his mind that in so lurid an adventure he 
would not be left out. The three of them took a 
west-bound train and met Granville Stuart at 
Glendive. 

But Stuart refused pointblank to accept their 
services. They were untrained for frontier condi- 
tions, he contended; they were probably reckless 
and doubtlessly uncontrollable; and would get 
themselves killed for no reason; above all, they 
were all three of prominent families. If anything 
happened to them, or if merely the news were spread 
abroad that they were taking part in the raid, 
the attention of the whole country would be drawn 
to an expedition in which the element of surprise 
was the first essential for success. 

The three young argonauts pleaded, but the 
old pioneer Was obdurate. He did not want to 
have them along, and he said so with all the courtesy 
that was one of his graces and all the precision 
of phrase that a life in the wild country had given 
him. Roosevelt and the Englishman saw the justice 
of the veteran's contentions and accepted the 
situation, but the Marquis was aggrieved. Gran- 
ville Stuart, meanwhile, having successfully side- 
tracked the three musketeers, proceeded silently 
to gather his clansmen. 



VIII 

All day long on the prairies I ride, 

Not even a dog to trot by my side; 

My fire I kindle with chips gathered round, 

My coffee I boil without being ground. 

I wash in a pool and wipe on a sack; 
I carry my wardrobe all on my back; 
For want of an oven I cook bread in a pot. 
And sleep on the ground for want of a cot. 

My ceiling is the sky, my floor is the grass, 
My music is the lowing of the herds as they pass; 
My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones, 
My parson is a wolf on his pulpit of bones. 

Cowboy song 

Roosevelt's first weeks at the Maltese Cross 
proved one thing to him beyond debate; that was, 
that the cabin seven miles south of Medora was 
not the best place in the world to do literary work. 
The trail south led directly through his dooryard, 
and loquacious cowpunchers stopped at all hours 
to pass the time of day. It was, no doubt, all 
"perfectly bully"; but you did not get much 
writing done, and even your correspondence suffered. 
Roosevelt had made up his mind, soon after his 
arrival early in the month, to bring Sewall and 
Dow out from Maine, and on his return from his 
solitary trip over the prairie after antelope, he set 
out to locate a site for a ranch, • where the two 
backwoodsmen might hold some cattle and where 
at the same time he might find the solitude he 
needed for his literary work. On one of his exploring 



THE NEW RANCH 149 

expeditions down the river, he met Howard Eaton 
riding south to the railroad from his V-Eye Ranch 
at the mouth of the Big Beaver, to receive a train- 
load of cattle. He told Eaton the object of his 
journeying, and Eaton, who knew the country better 
possibly than any other man in the Bad Lands, 
advised him to look at a bottom not more than 
five miles up the river from his own ranch. Roose- 
velt rode there promptly. The trail led almost 
due north, again and again crossing the Little 
Missouri which wound in wide sigmoid curves, 
now between forbidding walls of crumbling lime- 
stone and baked clay, now through green acres of 
pasture-land, or silvery miles of level sagebrush. 

The country was singularly beautiful. On his 
left, as he advanced, grassy meadows sloped to a 
wide plateau, following the curve of the river. 
The valley narrowed. He forded the stream. The 
trail rose sharply between steep walls of olive and 
lavender that shut off the sun; it wound through 
a narrow defile; then over a plateau, whence blue 
seas of wild country stretched northward into the 
haze; then sharply down again into a green bottom, 
walled on the west by buttes scarred like the face 
of an old man. He forded the stream once more, 
swung round a jutting hill, and found the end of 
the bottom-land in a grove of cottonwoods under 
the shadow of high buttes. At the edge of the 
river he came upon the interlocked antlers of two 
elk who had died in combat. He determined that it 
was there that his '' home-ranch" should stand. 



ISO ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

For three weeks Roosevelt was in the saddle every 
day from dawn till night, riding, often in no company 
but his own, up and down the river, restless and 
indefatigable. On one of his solitary rides he stopped 
at Mrs. Maddox's hut to call for the buckskin suit 
he had ordered of her. She was a woman of terrible 
vigor, and inspired in Roosevelt a kind of awe 
which none of the " bad men " of the region had 
been able to make him feel. 

She invited him to dinner. While she was prepar- 
ing the meal, he sat in a corner of the cabin. He 
had a habit of carrying a book with him wherever 
he went and he was reading, altogether absorbed, 
when suddenly Mrs. Maddox stumbled over one of 
his feet. 

'* Take that damn foot away! " she cried in tones 
that meant business.^ Roosevelt took his foot away, 
" and all that was attached to it," as one of his 
cowboy friends explained subsequently, waiting 
outside until the call for dinner came. He ate the 
dinner quickly, wasting no words, not caring to 
run any risk of stirring again the fury of Mrs. 
Maddox. 

It was on another solitary ride, this time in pur- 
suit of stray horses, — the horses, he found, were 

^ *' I am inclined to doubt the truth of this story. Mrs. Maddox 
was a terror only to those who took her wrong or tried to put it over 
her. Normally she was a very pleasant woman with a good, strong 
sense of humor. My impression is she took a liking to T. R. that time 
I took him there to be measured for his suit. If she ever spoke as 
above, she must have been on the war-path about something else at 
the time." — Lincoln Lang. 



THE BULLY AT MINGUSVILLE 151 

always straying, — that he had an adventure of a 
more serious and decidedly lurid sort. The horses 
had led him a pace through the Bad Lands westward 
out over the prairie, and night overtook him not 
far from Mingusville, a primitive settlement named 
thus with brilliant ingenuity by its first citizens, 
a lady by the name of Minnie and her husband 
by the name of Gus. The " town " — what there 
was of it — was pleasantly situated on rolling 
country on the west bank of Beaver Creek. Along 
the east side of the creek were high, steep, cream- 
colored buttes, gently rounded and capped with 
green, softer in color than the buttes of the Bad 
Lands and very attractive in spring in their frame 
of grass and cottonwoods and cedars. Mingusville 
consisted of the railroad station, the section-house, 
and a story-and-a-half " hotel " with a false front. 
The " hotel " was a saloon with a loft where you 
might sleep if you had courage. 

Roosevelt stabled his horse in a shed behind the 
" hotel," and started to enter. 

Two shots rang out from the barroom. 

He hesitated. He had made it a point to avoid 
centers of disturbance such as this, but the night 
was chilly and there was no place else to go. He 
entered, with misgivings. 

Inside the room were several men, beside the 
bartender, all, with one exception, " wearing the 
kind of smile," as Roosevelt said, in telling of the 
occasion, " worn by men who are making-believe to 
like what they don't like." The exception was a 



152 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

shabby-looking individual in a broad-brimmed hat 
who was walking up and down the floor talking and 
swearing. He had a cocked gun in each hand. A 
clock on the wall had two holes in its face, which 
accounted for the shots Roosevelt had heard. 

It occurred to Roosevelt that the man was not 
a "bad man" of the really dangerous, man-killer 
type; but a would-be " bad man," a bully who 
for the moment was having things all his own 
way. 

" Four-eyes! " he shouted as he spied the new- 
comer. 

There was a nervous laugh from the other men 
who were evidently sheepherders. Roosevelt joined 
in the laugh. 

" Four-eyes is going to treat! " shouted the man 
with the guns. 

There was another laugh. Under cover of it 
Roosevelt walked quickly to a chair behind the 
stove and sat down, hoping to escape further notice. 

But the bully was not inclined to lose what looked 
like an opportunity to make capital as a " bad 
man" at the expense of a harmless "dude" in a 
fringed buckskin suit. He followed Roosevelt across 
the room. 

" Four-eyes is going to treat," he repeated. 

Roosevelt passed the comment off as a joke. But 
the bully leaned over Roosevelt, swinging his guns, 
and ordered him, in language suited to the sur- 
roundings, " to set up the drinks for the crowd." 

For a moment Roosevelt sat silent, letting the 



THE END OF THE BULLY 153 

filthy storm rage round him. It occurred to him in 
a flash that he was face to face with a crisis vastly 
more significant to his future than the mere question 
whether or not he should let a drunken bully have 
his way. If he backed down, he said to himself, 
he would, when the news of it spread abroad, have 
more explaining to do than he would care to under- 
take. It was altogether a case of "Make good now, 
or quit! " 

The bully roared, " Set up the drinks! " 
It struck Roosevelt that the man was foolish to 
stand so near, with his heels together. " Well, if 
I've got to, I've got to," he said and rose to his 
feet, looking past his tormentor. 

As he rose he struck quick and hard with his 
right just to one side of the point of the jaw, hitting 
with his left as he straightened out, and then again 
with his right. 

The bully fired both guns, but the bullets went 
wide as he fell like a tree, striking the corner of the 
bar with his head. It occurred to Roosevelt that 
it was not a case in which one could afford to take 
chances, and he watched, ready to drop with his 
knees on the man's ribs at the first indication of 
activity. But the bully was senseless. The sheep- 
herders, now loud in their denunciations, hustled 
the would-be desperado into a shed. 

Roosevelt had his dinner in a corner of the dining- 
room away from the windows, and he went to bed 
without a light. But the man in the shed made no 
move to recover his shattered prestige. When he 



154 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

came to, he went to the station, departing on a 
freight, and was seen no more. 

The news of Roosevelt's encounter in the " rum- 
hole " in Mingusville spread as only news can spread 
in a country of few happenings and much conversa- 
tion. It was the kind of story that the Bad Lands 
liked to hear, and the spectacles and the fringed 
buckskin suit gave it an added attraction. " Four- 
eyes " became, overnight, " Old Four Eyes," which 
was another matter. 

" Roosevelt was regarded by the cowboys as a 
good deal of a joke until after the saloon incident," 
said Frank Greene, a local official of the Northern 
Pacific, many years later. " After that it was dif- 
ferent." 

Roosevelt departed for the East on July ist. 
On the 4th, the Mandan Pioneer published an 
editorial about him which expressed, in exuberant 
Dakota fashion, ideas which may well have been 
stirring in Roosevelt's own mind. 

Our friends west of us, at Little Missouri, are now 
being made happy by the presence among them of that 
rare bird, a political reformer. By his enemies he is 
called a dude, an aristocrat, a theorist, an upstart, and 
the rest, but it would seem, after all, that Mr. Roosevelt 
has something in him, or he would never have succeeded 
in stirring up the politicians of the Empire State. Mr. 
Roosevelt finds, doubtless, the work of a reformer to 
be a somewhat onerous one, and it is necessary, for his 
mental and physical health, that he should once and 
again leave the scene of his political labors and refresh 
himself with a little ozone, such as is to be found pure 
and unadulterated in the Bad Lands. Mr. Roosevelt is 



DAKOTA DISCOVERS ROOSEVELT 155 

not one of the fossilized kind of politicians who believes 
in staying around the musty halls of the Albany capitol 
all the time. He thinks, perhaps, that the man who 
lives in those halls, alternating between them and the 
Delavan House, is likely to be troubled with physical 
dyspepsia and mental carbuncles. Who knows but that 
John Kelly might to-day be an honored member of 
society — might be known outside of New York as a 
noble Democratic leader — if he had been accustomed 
to spend some of his time in the great and glorious West? 
Tammany Hall, instead of being to-day the synonym for 
all that is brutal and vulgar in politics, might be to-day 
another name for all that is fresh, and true, ozonic and 
inspiring in the political arena. If the New York politi- 
cians only knew it, they might find it a great advantage 
to come once or twice a year to West Dakota, to blow 
the cobwebs from their eyes, and get new ambitions, 
new aspirations, and new ideas. Mr. Roosevelt, although 
young, can teach wisdom to the sophisticated machine 
politicians, who know not the value to an Easterner of 
a blow among the fresh, fair hills of this fair territory. 

One wonders whether the editor is not, in part, 
quoting Roosevelt's own words. No doubt, Roose- 
velt was beginning already to realize what he was 
gaining in the Bad Lands. 

Roosevelt spent three weeks or more in the East; 
at New York where the politicians were after him, 
at Oyster Bay where he was building a new house, 
and at Chestnut Hill near Boston, which was closely 
c®nnected with the memories of his brief married 
life. Everywhere the reporters tried to extract 
from him some expression on the political campaign, 
but on that subject he was reticent. He issued 



156 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

a statement in Boston, declaring his intention to 
vote the RepubHcan ticket, but further than that 
he refused to commit himself. But he talked of the 
Bad Lands to any one who would listen. 

I like the West and I like ranching life [he said to 
a reporter of the New York Tribune who interviewed 
him at his sister's house a day or two before his return 
to Dakota]. On my last trip I was just three weeks 
at the ranch and just twenty-one days, of sixteen hours 
each, in the saddle, either after cattle, taking part in 
the " round-up," or hunting. It would electrify some of 
my friends who have accused me of representing the 
kid-gloved element in politics if they could see me 
galloping over the plains, day in and day out, clad in a 
buckskin shirt and leather chaparajos, with a big som- 
brero on my head. For good, healthy exercise I would 
strongly recommend some of our gilded youth to go 
West and try a short course of riding bucking ponies, 
and assist at the branding of a lot of Texas steers. 

There is something charmingly boyish in his 
enthusiasm over his own manly valor and his con- 
fidence in its " electrifying " effect. 

Roosevelt wrote to Sewall immediately after 
his arrival in the East, telling him that he would 
take him West with him. Toward the end of July, 
Sewall appeared in New York with his stalwart 
nephew in tow. The contract they entered into 
with Roosevelt was merely verbal. There was to 
be a three-year partnership. If business were pros- 
perous, they were to have a share in it. If it 
were not, they were to have wages, whatever hap- 
pened. 



STUART'S VIGILANTES 157 

''What do you think of that, Bill?" asked 
Roosevelt. 

" Why," answered Bill in his slow, Maine way, 
** I think that's a one-sided trade. But if you can 
stand it, I guess we can." 

That was all there was to the making of the con- 
tract. On the 28th the three of them started 
westward. 

In the cattle country, meanwhile, things had been 
happening. Shortly after Roosevelt's departure for 
the East, Granville Stuart had gathered his clans, 
and, suddenly and without warning, his bolt from 
the blue had fallen upon the outlaws of Montana. 
At a cabin here, at a deserted lumber-camp there, 
where the thieves, singly or in groups, made their 
headquarters, the masked riders appeared and held 
their grim proceedings. There was no temporizing, 
and little mercy. Justice was to be done, and it 
was done with all the terrible relentlessness that 
always characterizes a free citizen when he takes 
back, for a moment, the powers he has delegated to 
a government which in a crisis has proved im. potent 
or unwilling to exercise them. A drumhead court- 
martial might have seemed tedious and technical 
in comparison with the sharp brevity of the trials 
under the ominous cottonwoods. 

Out of the open country, where " Stuart's 
vigilantes " were swooping on nest after nest of 
the thieves, riders came with stories that might 
well have sent shudders down the backs even of 
innocent men. The newspapers were filled with 



158 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

accounts of lifeless bodies left hanging from count- 
less cottonwoods in the wake of the raiders, tales of 
battles in which the casualties were by no means 
all on one side, and snatches of humor that was 
terrible against the background of black tragedy. 
Some of the stories were false, some were fantastic 
exaggerations of actual fact sifted through excited 
imaginations. Those that were bare truth were in 
all conscience grim enough for the most morbid 
mind. The yarns flew from mouth to mouth, from 
ranch to ranch. Cowboys were hard to hold to 
their work. Now that a determined man had shown 
the way, everybody wanted to have a part in the 
last great round-up of the unruly. The excitement 
throughout the region was intense. Here and 
there subsidiary bands were formed to " clean up 
the stragglers." Thoughtful men began to have 
apprehensions that it might prove more difficult to 
get the imp of outraged justice back into the bottle 
than it had been to let him out. 

The raiders skirted the Bad Lands on the north, 
pushing on east to the Missouri, and for a time 
Medora's precious collection of desperadoes re- 
mained undisturbed. There were rumors that 
Maunders was on the books of Stuart's men, but 
under the wing of the Marquis he was well pro- 
tected, and that time, at least, no raiders came 
to interrupt his divers and always profitable ac- 
tivities. 

Roosevelt reached Medora with Sewall and Dow 
on July 31st. A reporter of the Pioneer interviewed 



SEWALL AND DOW 159 

him while the train was changing engines at 
Mandan. 

Theodore Roosevelt, the New York reformer, was 
on the west-bound train yesterday, en route to his ranch 
near Little IVIissouri [ran the item in the next day's 
issue]. He was feeling at his best, dressed in the careless 
style of the country gentleman of leisure, and spoke 
freely on his pleasant Dakota experience and politics 
in the East. He purposes spending several weeks on his 
ranch, after which he will return East. . . . Mr. 
Roosevelt believes that the young men of our country 
should assume a spirit of independence in politics. He 
would rather be forced to the shades of private life with 
a short and honorable career than be gi\'en a life tenure 
of political prominence as the slave of a party or its 
masters. 

Roosevelt brought his two backwoodsmen 
straight to the Maltese Cross. The men from Maine 
were magnificent specimens of manhood. Sewall, 
nearing forty, with tremendous shoulders a little 
stooped as though he were accustomed to passing 
through doorways that were too low for him; 
Dow, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, erect and clear- 
eyed. They looked on the fantastic landscape with 
quiet wonderment. 

"Well, Bill," remarked Roosevelt that night, 
" what do you think of the country? " 

" Why," answered the backwoodsman, " I like 
the country well enough. But I don't believe that 
it's much of a cattle country." 

"Bill," said Roosevelt vigorously, "you don't 
know anything about it. Everybody says that it is." 



i6o ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Sewall laughed softly. " It's a fact that I don't 
know anything about it," he said. " I reaHze that. 
But it's the way it looks to me, like not much of a 
cattle country." 

During Roosevelt's absence in the East, Merri- 
field and Sylvane had returned from Iowa with a 
thousand head of yearlings and " two-year-olds." 
A hundred head of the original herd, which had 
become accustomed to the country, he had already 
set apart for the lower ranch, and the day after 
his arrival he sent the two backwoodsmen north 
with them, under the general and vociferous direc- 
tion of a certain Captain Robins. The next day, in 
company with a pleasant Englishman who had ac- 
companied him West, he rode up the river to Lang's. 

The ranch of the talkative Scotchman had suffered 
a joyous change since Roosevelt's last visit. A 
week or two previous Gregor Lang's wife had ar- 
rived from Ireland with her daughter and younger 
son, and a visit at Yule, as Lang had called his 
ranch, was a different thing from what it had been 
when it had been under masculine control. The new 
ranch-house was completed, and though it was 
not large it was vastly more homelike than any 
other cabin on the river with the possible exception 
of the Eatons'. It stood in an open flat, facing 
north, with a long butte behind it; and before it, 
beyond a wide semi-circle of cottonwoods that 
marked the river's course, low hills, now gra^^ and 
now green, stretching away to the horizon. It was 
a curiously Scotch landscape, especially at dusk 



MRS. LANG i6i 

or in misty weather, which was no doubt a reason 
why Gregor Lang had chosen it for his home. 

Mrs. Lang proved to be a woman of evident 
character and abiUty. She was well along in the 
forties, but in her stately bearing and the magnifi- 
cent abundance of her golden hair, that had no 
strand of gray in it, lay more than a hint of the 
beauty that was said to have been hers in her youth. 
There was wistfulness in the delicate but firm 
mouth and chin; there was vigor in the broad 
forehead and the well-proportioned nose ; and humor 
in the shrewd, quiet eyes set far apart. She be- 
longed to an old Border family, and had lived all 
her life amid the almost perfect adjustments of 
well-to-do British society of the middle class, 
where every cog was greased and every wheel was 
ball-bearing. But she accepted the grating exist- 
ence of the frontier with something better than 
resignation, and set about promptly in a wild and 
alien country to make a new house into a new home. 

Whi'e Roosevelt was getting acquainted with 
the new-comers at Yule, Sewall and Dow were 
also getting acquainted with many people and things 
that were strange to them. They took two days 
for the ride from the Maltese Cross to the site of 
the new ranch, for the river was high and they 
were forced to take a roundabout trail over the 
prairie; the cattle, moreover, could be driven only 
at a slow pace; but even twenty-odd miles a day 
was more than a Maine backwoodsman enjoyed as 
initiation in horsemanship. Dow was mounted 



i62 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

on an excellent trained horse, and being young 
and supple was able to do his share in spite of his 
discomfort. But the mare that had been allotted 
to Sewall happened also to be a tenderfoot, and 
they did not play a conspicuous role in the progress 
of the cattle. 

Captain Robins was not the sort to make allow- 
ances when there was work to be done. He was a 
small, dark man with a half-inch beard almost 
completely covering his face, a " seafaring man " 
who had got his experience with cattle in South 
America; " a man of many orders" as Sewall curtly 
described him in a letter home. He rode over to 
where Sewall was endeavoring in a helpless way to 
make the mare go in a general northerly direction. 

Sewall saw him coming, and wondered why he 
thought it necessary to come at such extraordinary 
speed. 

The Captain drew rein sharply at Sewall's side. 
" Why in hell don't you ride in and do something? " 
he roared. 

Sewall knew exactly why he didn't. He had 
known it for some time, and he was nettled with 
himself, for he had not been accustomed " to take 
a back seat for any one " when feats that demanded 
physical strength and skill were to be done. Robins 
was very close to him, and Sewall's first impulse 
was to take him by the hair. But it occurred to 
him that the seafaring man was smaller than he, 
and that thought went out of his head. 

" I know I'm not doing anything," he said at 



SEWALL SPEAKS HIS MIND 163 

last gruffly. " I don't know anything about what 
I'm tr3ang to do and I think I've got a horse as 
green as I am. But don't you ever speak to me in 
such a manner as that again as long as you Hve." 

There was a good deal that was impressive about 
Sewall, his shoulders, his teeth that were like tomb- 
stones, his vigorous, brown beard, his eyes that had 
a way of blazing. The Captain did not pursue 
the discussion. 

" That Sewall is a kind of quick-tempered 
fellow," he remarked to Dow. 

" I don't think he is," said the younger man 
quietly. 

" He snapped me up." 

" You m.ust have said something to him, for he 
ain't in the habit of doing such things." 

The Captain dropped the subject for the time 
being. 

Roosevelt, after two days at Lang's, returned 
to the Maltese Cross and then rode northward to 
look after the men from Maine. 

Captain Robins's report was altogether favorable. 
" You've got two good men here, Mr. Roosevelt," 
said he. "That Sewall don't calculate to bear any- 
thing. I spoke to him the other day, and he snapped 
me up so short I did not know what to make of it. 
But," he added, " I don't blame him. I did not 
speak to him as I ought." 

This was what Bill himself would have called 
" handsome." Roosevelt carried the gruff apology 
to Sewall, and there was harmony after that between 



i64 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the lumberjack and the seafaring man, punching 
cattle together in the Bad Lands. 

The cattle which Captain Robins and his two 
tenderfeet from Maine had driven down the river 
from the Maltese Cross were intended to be the 
nucleus of the Elkhorn herd. They were young 
grade short-horns of Eastern origin, less wild than 
the long-horn Texas steers, but liable, on new 
ground, to stray off through some of the innum.er- 
able coulees stretching back from the river, and be 
lost in the open prairie. The seafaring man de- 
termined, therefore, that they should be " close- 
herded " every night and " bedded down " on the 
level bottom where the cabin stood which was 
their temporary ranch-house. So each dusk, Roose- 
velt and his men drove the cattle down from 
the side valleys, and each night, in two-hour 
" tricks " all night long, one or the other of them 
rode slowly and quietly round and round the herd, 
heading off all that tried to stray. This was not 
altogether a simple business, for there was danger 
of stampede in making the slightest unusual noise. 
Now and then they would call to the cattle softly 
as they rode, or sing to them until the steers had 
all lain down close together. 

It was while Roosevelt was working at Elkhorn 
that he received a call from Howard Eaton, who was 
his neighbor there as well as at the Maltese Cross, 
since his ranch at the mouth of Big Beaver Creek 
was only five miles down the Little Missouri 
from the place where^ Roosevelt had "staked his 



I 

1 



ENTER THE MARQUIS 165 

claim." Eaton brought Chris McGee, his partner, 
with him. Roosevelt had heard of McGee, not 
altogether favorably, for McGee was the Republican 
"boss"' of Pittsburgh in days when "bosses" 
were in flower. 

" Are you going to stay out here and make 
ranching a business? " asked Eaton. 

" No," Roosevelt answered. " For the present 
I am out here because I cannot get up any enthu- 
siasm for the Republican candidate, and it seems 
to me that punching cattle is the best way to avoid 
campaigning." 

Eaton asked McGee on the way home how 
Roosevelt stood in the East. " Roosevelt is a 
nice fellow," remarked McGee, " but he's a damned 
fool in politics." 

Roosevelt remained with Robins and the men 
from Maine for three days, var>ang his life in the 
saddle with a day on foot after grouse when the 
larder ran low. It was all joyous sport, which was 
lifted for a moment into the plane of adventure 
by a communication from the Marquis de Mores. 

That gentleman wTote Roosevelt a letter inform- 
ing him that he himself claimed the range on which 
Roosevelt had established himself. 

Roosevelt's answer was brief and definite. He 
had found nothing but dead sheep on the range, 
he wrote, and he did not think that they would hold 
it. 

There the matter rested. 

" You'd better be on the lookout," Roosevelt 



i66 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LAiNDS 

remarked to Sewall and Dow, as he was making 
ready to return to the Maltese Cross. " There's 
just a chance there may be trouble." 

" I cal'late we can look out for ourselves," 
announced Bill with a gleam in his eye. 



( 



IX 

Young Dutch Van Zander, drunkard to the skin, 
Flung wide the door and let the world come in — 
The world, with daybreak on a thousand buttes! 
"Say, is this heaven, Bill — or is it gin?" 

Bad Lands Rubdiyat 

Roosevelt returned to the upper ranch on August 
nth. 

Everything so far has gone along beautifully [he 
wrote to his sister on the following day]. I had great 
fun in bringing my two backwoods babies out here. 
Their absolute astonishment and delight at everything 
they saw, and their really very shrewd, and yet wonder- 
fully simple remarks were a perpetual delight to me. 

I found the cattle all here and looking well; I have 
now got some sixteen hundred head on the river. I 
mounted Sewall and Dow on a couple of ponies (where 
they looked like the pictures of discomfort, Sewall 
remarking that his only previous experience in the 
equestrian line was when he " rode logs "), and started 
them at once off down the river with a hundred head of 
cattle, under the lead of one of my friends out here, a 
grumpy old sea captain, who has had a rather diversified 
life, trying his hand as sailor, buffalo hunter, butcher, 
apothecary imirahile dictu) , and cowboy. Sewall tried to 
spur his horse which' began kicking and rolled over with 
him into a washout. 

Sewall, meanwhile, was also writing letters " to 
the folks back East," and the opinions he expressed 
about the Bad Lands were plain and unvarnished. 

It is a dirty country and very dirty people on an aver- 



i68 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

age [he wrote his brother Samuel in Island Falls], but I 
think it is healthy. The soil is sand or clay, all dust or all 
mud. The river is the meanest apology for a frog-pond 
that I ever saw. It is a queer country, you would like to 
see it, but you would not like to live here long. The hills 
are mostly of clay, the sides of some very steep and bar- 
ren of all vegetation. You would think cattle would 
starve there, but all the cattle that have wintered here 
are fat now and they say here that cattle brought from 
any other part will improve in size and quality. Theo- 
dore thinks I will have more than $3000.00 in three 
years if nothing happens. He is going to put on a lot of 
cattle next year. 

This is a good place for a man with plenty of money 
to make more, but if I had enough money to start here 
I never would come, think the country ought to have 
been left to the annimils that have laid their bones here. 

Roosevelt had, ever since the Chicago conven- 
tion, planned to go on an extensive hunting trip, 
partly to take his mind from the political campaign, 
from which, in his judgment, the course of events 
had eliminated him, and partly to put himself 
out of reach of importunate politicians in various 
parts of the country, who were endeavoring to make 
him commit himself in favor of the Republican 
candidate in a way that would make his pre- 
convention utterances appear insincere and absurd. 
The tug of politics was strong. He loved " the 
game " and he hated to be out of a good fight. 
To safeguard himself, therefore, he determined to 
hide himself in the recesses of the Big Horn Moun- 
tains in Wyoming. 

In a day or two I start out [he wrote on August 12th 



DUTCH WANNIGAN 169 

to his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, who had suffered 
defeat at his side at the convention] with two hunt- 
ers, six riding-ponies, and a canvas- topped " prairie 
schooner " for the Bighorn Mountains. You would be 
amused to see me, in my broad sombrero hat, fringed 
and beaded buckskin shirt, horsehide chaparajcs or 
riding-trousers, and cowhide boots, with braided bridle 
and silver spurs. I have always liked horse and rifle, 
and being, like yourself, " ein echter Amerikaner," 
prefer that description of sport which needs a buckskin 
shirt to that whose votaries adopt the red coat. A 
buffalo is nobler game than an anise-seed bag, the Anglo^ 
maniacs to the contrary notwithstanding. 

He did not start on the day he had p>lanned, for 
the reason that the six riding-ponies which he needed 
were not to be had for love or money in the whole 
length and breadth of the Bad Lands. He sent 
Sylvane with another man south to Spearfish in 
the Black Hills to buy a " string " of horses. The 
other man was Jack Reuter, otherwise known as 
" Dutch Wannigan." For " Wannigan," like his 
fellow " desperado," Frank O'Donald, had returned 
long since to the valley of the Little Missouri and 
taken up again the activities which the Marquis 
had rudely interrupted. But, being a simple- 
hearted creature, he had sold no croD of hay to 
the Marquis " in stubble " for a thousand dollars, 
like his craftier associate. He had merely " gone 
to work." The fact that it happened to be Roose- 
velt for whom he went to work had something to 
do, no doubt, with the subsequent relations between 
Roosevelt and the Marquis. 



170 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Various forces for which the Marquis himself 
could claim no responsibility had, meanwhile, been 
conspiring with him to " boom " his new town. 
The glowing and distinctly exaggerated accounts 
of farming conditions in the Northwest, sent 
broadcast by the railroad companies, had started 
a wave of immigration westward which the laments 
of the disappointed seemed to have no power to 
check. " City-boomers," with their tales of amaz- 
ing fortunes made overnight, lured men to a score 
of different " towns " along the Northern Pacific 
that were nothing but two ruts and a section- 
house. From the south rolled a tide of another 
sort. The grazing-lands of Texas were becoming 
overstocked, and up the broad cattle-trail came 
swearing cowboys in broad sombreros, driving 
herds of long-horned cattle into the new grazing- 
country. Altogether, it was an active season for 
the saloon-keepers of Medora. 

The Marquis was having endless trouble with 
the plans for his stage-line and was keeping Packard 
on tenterhooks. Packard twiddled his thumbs, and 
the Marquis, plagued by the citizens of the Black 
Hills whom he had promised the stage- and freight- 
line months previous, made threats one day and 
rosy promises the next. It was the middle of 
August before Packard received directions to go 
ahead. 

Roosevelt did not see much of the genial editor 
of the Cowboy during those August days while he 
was waiting for Sylvane and " Dutch Wannigan " to 



POLITICAL SIRENS 171 

return from Spearfish with the ponies, for Packard, 
knowing that every hour was precious, was rushing 
frantically to and fro, buying lumber and feed, peg- 
ging out the sites of his stage-stations, his eating- 
houses, his barns and his corrals, and superintending 
the constructing crews at the dozen or more stops 
along the route. 

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was obviously restless 
and seemed to find peace of mind only in almost 
continuous action. After two or three days at the 
Maltese Cross, he was back at Elkhorn again, 
forty miles away, and the next day he was once 
more on his travels, riding south. Sewall went 
with him, for he wanted the backwoodsman to 
accompany him on the trip to the Big Horn Moun- 
tains. Dow remained with the seafaring man, look- 
ing crestfallen and unhappy. 

During the days that he was waiting for Sylvane 
to return, Roosevelt touched Medora and its 
feverish life no more than absolute necessity 
demanded, greeting his acquaintances in friendly 
fashion, but tending strictly to business. It seems, 
however, that he had already made a deep im- 
pression on his neighbors up and down the river. 
The territory was shortly to be admitted to state- 
hood and there were voices demanding that Theo- 
dore Roosevelt be Dakota's first representative 
in Congress. 

In commenting upon the rumor that Theodore 
Roosevelt had come to Dakota for the purpose of going 
to Congress [said the Bismarck Weekly Tribune in an 



172 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

editorial on August 8th], the Mandan Pioneer takes 
occasion to remark that young Roosevelt's record as a 
public man is above reproach and that he is "a vigorous 
young Republican of the new school." Such favorable 
comment from a Mandan paper tends to substantiate 
the rumor that the young political Hercules has already 
got the West Missouri section solid. 

" If he concludes to run," remarked the Pioneer, 
" he will give our politicians a complete turning 
over." 

What sirens were singing to Roosevelt of political 
honors in the new Western country, and to what 
extent he listened to them, are questions to which 
neither his correspondence nor the newspapers 
of the time provide an answer. It is not unreason- 
able to believe that the possibility of becoming a 
political power in the Northwest allured him. 
His political position in the East was, at the 
moment, hopeless. Before the convention, he had 
antagonized the " regular " Republicans by his 
leadership of the Independents in New York, which 
had resulted in the complete defeat of the " organi- 
zation " in the struggle over the " Big Four " at 
Utica; after the convention, he had antagonized 
the Independents by refusing to " bolt the ticket." 
He consequently had no political standing, either 
within the party, or without. The Independents 
wept tears over him, denouncing him as a traitor; 
and the " regulars," even while they were calling 
for his assistance in the campaign, were whetting 
their knives to dirk him in the back. 



ABLE TO FACE ANYTHING 173 

If the temptation ever came to him to cut what 
remained of his political ties in the East and start 
afresh in Dakota, no evidence of it has yet ap- 
peared. A convention of the Republicans of Billings 
County was held in the hall over Bill Williams's 
new saloon in Medora on August i6th. Roosevelt 
did not attend it. Sylvane and "Wannigan" had 
returned from Spearfish and Roosevelt was trying 
out one of the new ponies at a round-up in the Big 
Ox Bow thirty miles to the south. 

We have been delayed nearly a week by being forced 
to get some extra ponies [he wrote his sister Anna on 
the 17th]. However, I was rather glad of it, as I wished 
to look thoroughly through the cattle before going. 
To-morrow morning early we start out. Merritield and 
I go on horseback, each taking a spare pony; which 
will be led behind the wagon, a light " prairie schooner " 
drawn by two stout horses, and driven by an old French 
Canadian. I wear a sombrero, silk neckerchief, fringed 
buckskin shirt, sealskin chaparajos or riding- trousers ; 
alligator-hide boots; and with my pearl-hllted revolver 
and beautifully finished Winchester rifle, I shall feel 
able to face anything. 

There is no question that Roosevelt's costume 
fascinated him. It was, in fact, gorgeous beyond 
description. 

How long I will be gone I cannot say; we will go in 
all nearly a thousand miles. If game is plenty and my 
success is good, I may return in six weeks; more probably 
I shall be out a couple of months, and if game is so 
scarce that we have to travel very far to get it, or if 
our horses give out or run away, or we get caught by 



174 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the snow, we may be out very much longer — till 
toward Christmas; though I will try to be back to vote. 

Yesterday I rode seventy-two miles between dawn 
and darkness ; I have a superb roan pony, or rather horse ; 
he looks well with his beautifully carved saddle, plaited 
bridle, and silver inlaid bit, and seems to be absolutely 
tireless. 

I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a 
desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious 
fascination for me. The grassy, scantily wooded bottoms 
through which the winding river flows are bounded by 
bare, jagged buttes; their fantastic shapes and sharp, 
steep edges throw the most curious shadows, under the 
cloudless, glaring sky; and at evening I love to sit out 
in front of the hut and see their hard, gray outlines 
gradually grow soft and purple as the flaming sunset 
by degrees softens and dies away; while my days I 
spend generally alone, riding through the lonely rolling 
prairie and broken lands. 

If, on those solitary rides, Roosevelt gave much 
thought to politics, it was doubtless not on any 
immediate benefit for himself on which his mind 
dwelt. Sewall said, long afterward, that " Roose- 
velt was always thinkin' of makin* the world bet- 
ter, instead of worse," and Merrifield remembered 
that even in those early days the " Eastern tender- 
foot " was dreaming of the Presidency. It was a 
wholesome region to dream in. Narrow notions 
could not live in the gusty air of the prairies, and 
the Bad Lands were not conducive to sentimen- 
talism. 



X 

The pine spoke, but the word he said was "Silence"; 

The aspen sang, but silence was her theme. 
The wind was silence, restless; and the voices 
Of the bright forest-creatures were as silence 

Made vocal in the topsy-turvy of dream. 

Paradise Found 

Roosevelt started for the Big Horn Mountains 
on August 1 8th, but Sewall, after all, did not go 
with him. Almost with tears, he begged off. " I'd 
always dreamed of hunting through that Big Horn 
country," he said long afterward. " I had picked 
that out as a happy hunting ground for years and 
years, and I never wanted to go anywhere so much 
as I wanted to go along with Theodore on that 
trip." But the memory of the lonely look in Will 
Dow's face overcame the soft-hearted backwoods- 
man at the last minute. He pointed out to Roose- 
velt that one man could not well handle the logs 
for the new ranch-house and suggested that he be 
allowed to rejoin Will Dow. 

Early on the morning of the i8th, Roosevelt 
set his caravan in motion for the long journey. 
For a hunting companion he had Merrifield and for 
teamster and cook he had a French Canadian named 
Norman Lebo, who, as Roosevelt subsequently 
remarked, to Lebo's indignation (for he prided 
himself on his scholarship), " possessed a most 
extraordinary stock of miscellaneous mis-informa- 
tion upon every conceivable subject." He was a 



176 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

short, stocky, bearded man, a born wanderer, who 
had left his family once for a week's hunting trip 
and remained away three years, returning at last 
only to depart again, after a week, for further 
Odyssean wanderings. "If I had the money," 
he had a way of saying, " no two nights would 
ever see me in the same bed." It was rumored 
that before Mrs. Lebo had permitted her errant 
spouse to go out of her sight, she had secured pledges 
from Roosevelt guaranteeing her three years' sub- 
sistence, in case the wanderlust should once more 
seize upon her protector and provider. 

Roosevelt rode ahead of the caravan, spending 
the first night with the Langs, who were always 
friendly and hospitable and full of good talk, and 
rejoining Merrifield and " the outfit " on the Keogh 
trail a few miles westward next morning. Slowly 
and laboriously the " prairie schooner " lumbered 
along the uneven route. The weather was sultry, 
and as chey crossed the high divide which separated 
the Little Missouri basin from the valley of the 
Little Beaver they saw ahead of them the towering 
portents of storm. The northwest was already 
black, and in a space of time that seemed incredibly- 
brief the masses of cloud boiled up and over the 
sky. The storm rolled toward them at furious 
speed, extending its wings, as it came, as though 
to gather in its victims. 

Against the dark background of the mass [Roosevelt 
wrote, describing it later] could be seen pillars and clouds 
of gray mist, whirled hither and thither by the wind, 




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THE START FOR THE BIG HORNS 177 

and sheets of level rain driven before it. The edges of 
the wings tossed to and fro, and the wind shrieked and 
moaned as it swept over the prairie. It was a storm of 
unusual intensity; the prairie fowl rose in flocks from 
before it, scudding with spread wings toward the thickest 
cover, and the herds of antelope ran across the plain 
like race-horses to gather in the hollows and behind 
the low ridges. 

We spurred hard to get out of the open, riding with 
loose reins for the creek. The center of the storm swept 
by behind us, fairly across our track, and we only got a 
wipe from the tail of it. Yet this itself we could not 
have faced in the open. The first gust caught us a few 
hundred yards from the creek, almost taking us from 
the saddle, and driving the rain and hail in stinging 
level sheets against us. We galloped to the edge of a 
deep wash-out, scrambled into it at the risk of our 
necks, and huddled up with our horses underneath the 
windward bank. Here we remained pretty well sheltered 
until the storm was over. Although it was August, the 
air became very cold. The wagon was fairly caught, and 
would have been blown over if the top had been on; 
the driver and horses escaped without injury, pressing 
under the leeward side, the storm coming so level that 
they did not need a roof to protect them from the hail. 
Where the center of the whirlwind struck, it did great 
damage, sheets of hailstones as large as pigeons' eggs 
striking the earth with the velocity of bullets; next day 
the hailstones could have been gathered up by the bushel 
from the heaps that lay in the bottom of the gullies 
and ravines. 

They made camp that night at the edge of the 
creek whose banks had given them what little 
shelter there was on the plateau where the storm 
had struck them. All night the rain continued in 



178 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

a drizzle punctuated at intervals by sharp showers. 
Next morning the weather was no better, and 
after a morning's struggle with the wagon along 
the slippery trail of gumbo mud, they made what 
would under other circumstances have been a 
" dry camp." They caught the rain in their slickers 
and made their coffee of it, and spent another more 
or less uncomfortable night coiling themselves over 
and around a cracker- barrel which seemed to take 
up the whole interior of the wagon. 

The weather cleared at last, and they pushed on 
southwestward, between Box Elder Creek and 
Powder River. It was dreary country through 
which Lebo and his prairie schooner made their 
slow and creaking way, and Roosevelt and Merri- 
field, to whom the pace was torture, varied the mo- 
notony with hunting expeditions on one-side or the 
other of the parallel ruts that were the Keogh trail. 
It was on one of these trips that Roosevelt learned 
a lesson which he remembered. 

They had seen a flock of prairie chickens and 
Roosevelt had started off with his shot-gun to bring 
in a meal of them. Suddenly Merrifield called to 
him. Roosevelt took no heed. 
r/ " Don't you shoot! " cried Merrifield. 

Roosevelt, with his eyes on the chickens, pro- 
ceeded on his way undeterred. Suddenly, a little 
beyond where he had seen the prairie fowl go to 
covert, a mountain lion sprang out of the brush and 
bounded away. Roosevelt ran for his rifle, but he 
was too late. The lion was gone. 



ROOSEVELT WRITES HOME 179 

Merrifield's eyes were blazing and his remarks 
were not dissimilar. " Now, whenever I hold up 
my hand," he concluded, " you stop still where you 
are. Understand? " 

Roosevelt, who would have knocked his ranch- 
partner down with earnestness and conviction if he 
had thought Merrifield was in the wrong, meekly 
bore the hunter's wrath, knowing that Merrifield 
was in the right; and thereafter on the expedition 
obeyed orders with a completeness that occasionally 
had its comic aspects. But Merrifield had no more 
complaints to make. 

They plodded on, day after day, seeing no human 
being. When at last they did come upon a lonely 
rider, Roosevelt instantly pressed him into service as 
a mail carrier, and wrote two letters. 

The first was to his sister Anna. 

I am writing this on an upturned water-keg, by our 
canvas-covered wagon, while the men are making tea, 
and the solemn old ponies are grazing round about me. 
I am going to trust it to the tender mercies of a stray 
cowboy whom we have just met, and who may or may 
not post it when he gets to " Powderville," a delectable 
log hamlet some seventy miles north of us. 

We left the Little Missouri a week ago, and have 
been traveling steadily some twenty or thirty miles a 
day ever since, through a desolate, barren-looking and 
yet picturesque country, part of the time rolling prairie 
and part of the time broken, jagged Bad Lands. We 
have fared sumptuously, as I have shot a number of 
prairie chickens, sage hens and ducks, and a couple of 
fine bucks — besides missing several of the latter that 
I ought to have killed. 



i8o ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Every morning we get up at dawn, and start off by 
six o'clock or thereabouts, Merrifield and I riding off 
among the hills or ravines after game, while the battered 
" prairie schooner," with the two spare ponies led behind, 
is driven slowly along by old Lebo, who is a perfect 
character. He is a weazened, wiry old fellow, very 
garrulous, brought up on the frontier, and a man who 
is never put out or disconcerted by any possible combi- 
nation of accidents. Of course we have had the usual 
incidents of prairie travel happen to us. One day we 
rode through a driving rainstorm, at one time developing 
into a regular hurricane of hail and wind, which nearly 
upset the wagon, drove the ponies almost frantic, and 
forced us to huddle into a gully for protection. The rain 
lasted all night and we all slept in the wagon, pretty 
wet and not very comfortable. Another time a sharp 
gale of wind or rain struck us in the middle of the night, 
as we were lying out in the open (we have no tent), 
and we shivered under our wet blankets till morning. 
We go into camp a little before sunset, tethering two or 
three of the horses, and letting the others range. One 
night we camped in a most beautiful natural park; it 
was a large, grassy hill, studded thickly with small, 
pine-crowned chalk buttes, with very steep sides, worn 
into the most outlandish and fantastic shapes. All 
that night the wolves kept up a weird concert around 
our camp — they are most harmless beasts. 

The second letter was to his friend Lodge, who 
was in the midst of a stiff fight to hold his seat in 
Congress. 

You must pardon the paper and general appearance 
of this letter, as I am writing out in camp, a hundred 
miles or so from any house; and indeed, whether this 
letter is, or is not, ever delivered depends partly on 



A LETTER TO LODGE i8i 

Providence, and partly on the good-will of an equally 
inscrutable personage, either a cowboy or a horse-thief, 
whom we have just met, and who has volunteered to 
post it — my men are watching him with anything but 
friendly eyes, as they think he is going to try to steal 
our ponies. (To guard against this possibility he is to 
sleep between my foreman and myself — delectable 
bedfellow he'll prove, doubtless.) 

I have no particular excuse for writing, beyond the 
fact that I would give a good deal to have a talk with 
you over political matters, just now. I heartily enjoy 
this life, with its perfect freedom, for I am very fond of 
hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that 
of galloping over these rolling, limitless prairies, rifle in 
hand, or winding my way among the barren, fantastic 
and grimly picturesque deserts of the so-called Bad 
Lands; and yet I cannot help wishing I could be battling 
along with you, and I cannot regret enough the un- 
fortunate turn in political affairs that has practically 
debarred me from taking any part in the fray. I have 
received fifty different requests to speak in various 
places — among others, to open the campaign in \^er- 
mont and Minnesota. I am glad I am not at home; I 
get so angry with the " mugwumps," and get to have 
such scorn and contempt for them, that I know I would 
soon be betrayed into taking some step against them, 
much more decided than I really ought to take. 

The hunting trips which Roosevelt and Merri- 
field made on this side or the other of the trail 
had their charm, and their perils also. There was 
one excursion, while the wagon was crawling up the 
Clear Fork of the Powder River, which for several 
reasons remained memorable. 

The party was out of food, for the country they 



i82 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

had been traversing was not favorable for game, and 
Roosevelt and Merrifield started forth one after- 
noon, with hope goaded by necessity, to replenish 
the larder. 

Where the hilly country joined the river bottom, 
it broke off into steep bluffs, presenting an ascent 
before which even a bronco, it seemed, had his 
hesitations. Roosevelt and his companion rode into 
a washout, and then, dismounting, led their ponies 
along a clay ledge from which they turned off and 
went straight up an almiost perpendicular sandy 
bluff. As Merrifield, who was in the le^d, turned 
off the ledge, his horse, plunging in his attempt to 
clamber up the steep bluff, overbalanced himself, 
and for a second stood erect on his hind legs trying 
to recover his equilibrium. As Roosevelt, who was 
directly beneath him, made a frantic leap with 
his horse to one side, Merrifield's pony rolled over 
backwards, turned two complete somersaults and 
landed with a crash at the bottom of the washout, 
feet uppermost. They did not dare to hope that 
the horse would not be " done for," but he proved 
on investigation to be very much alive. Without 
aid he struggled to his feet, looking about in a 
rather shame-faced fashion, apparently none the 
worse for his fall. With vigorous pulling, they 
drew Roosevelt's pony to the top, and by the same 
method, augmented with coaxing and abuse, they 
brought his fellow to his side at last, and proceeded 
on their excursion. 

Late in the afternoon they came on three black- 



INDIANS 183 

tail deer. Roosevelt took a running shot at two 
hundred yards and missed, took another and missed 
again, though this time he managed to turn the 
animals in their flight. They disappeared round 
the shoulder of a bluff, and Roosevelt, suspecting 
that they would reappear when they had recovered 
from their terror, elevated his sights to four hundred 
yards and waited. It was not long before one of 
the three stepped out. Roosevelt raised his rifle. 
The shot, at that distance, was almost impossible, 
but there was zest in the trying. Suddenly another 
buck stepped out and walked slowly toward the 
first. Roosevelt waited until the heads were in 
line and fired. Over went both bucks. Roosevelt 
paced off the distance. It was just four hundred 
and thirty-one long paces. 

It was while they were ascending the Clear Fork 
of the Powder that they discovered a band of 
Indians camped a short distance from the place 
where they themselves had halted for the night. 

"I'm going over to see those Indians," remarked 
Merrifield after dinner that evening. 

"What do you want to go over there for?" 
asked Roosevelt. 

"Out in this country," responded the hunter 
dryly, "you always want to know who your neigh- 
bors are." 

They rode over together. The Indians were 
Cheyennes. Experience had taught Merrifield that 
nothing was so conducive to peaceful relations with 
a red neighbor as to prove to him that you could 



i84 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

beat him at his own game. He consequently sug- 
gested a shooting-match. The Indians agreed. To 
Roosevelt's astonishment they proved to be very 
bad shots, and not only Merrifield, but Roosevelt 
himself, completely outclassed them in the com- 
petition. The Indians were noticeably impressed. 
Merrifield and Roosevelt rode back to their camp 
conscious that so far as those particular Indians 
were concerned no anxiety need disturb their 
slumbers. 

"Indians," remarked Merrifield later, "are the 
best judges of human nature in the world. When 
an Indian finds out that you are a good shot, he 
will leave you absolutely alone to go and come as 
you like. Indians are just like white men. They 
are not going to start something when they know 
you can out-shoot them." 

For three weeks they traveled through desolation 
before they came at last to the goal of their journey. 
At the foot of the first steep rise, on the banks of 
Crazy Woman Creek, a few miles south of the army 
post at Buffalo, they left the wagon, and following 
an old Indian trail started into the mountains, 
driving their pack-ponies before them. 

It was pleasant, after three burning weeks of 
treeless prairie, to climb into the shadowy greenness 
of the mountains. All about them was the music of 
running water, where clear brooks made their 
way through deep gorges and under interlacing 
boughs. Groves of great pines rose from grassy 
meadows and fringed the glades that lay here and 



CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS 185 

there like quiet parks in the midst of the wilderness. 

The hunters pitched their camp at last in a green 
valley beside a boisterous mountain brook. The 
weather was clear, with thin ice coursing the dark 
waters of the mountain tarns, and now and again 
slight snowfalls that made the forest gleam and 
glisten in the moonlight like fairyland. Through 
the frosty air they could hear the vibrant, musical 
notes of the bull elk far off, calling to the cows or 
challenging one another. 

No country could have been better adapted to 
still hunting than the great, pine-clad mountains, 
studded with open glades. Roosevelt loved the 
thrill of the chase, but he loved no less the com- 
panionship of the majestic trees and the shy wild 
creatures which sprang across his path or ran with 
incredible swiftness along the overhanging boughs. 
Moving on noiseless moccasins he caught alluring 
glimpses of the inner life of the mountains. 

The days passed very pleasantly in the crystal 
air and vibrant solitude of their mountain hunting 
grounds. The fare that old Lebo provided was 
excellent, and to the three men, who had for weeks 
been accustomed to make small fires from dried 
brush or from sagebrush roots laboriously dug out 
of the ground, it was a treat to sit at night before 
the roaring pine-logs. 

'' We've come to a land at last," remarked the 
quaint old teamster with satisfaction, " where the 
wood grows on trees." 

They shot several elk promptly, but the grizzlies 



l86 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

they were after eluded them. At last, after a week, 
Merrifield, riding into camp one dusk, with a shout 
announced that he had come upon grizzly-bear 
signs some ten miles away. They shifted camp 
at once. 

That afternoon, on a crag overlooking a wild 
ravine, Roosevelt shot another great bull elk. To 
Merrifield it seemed as though the elk mJght con- 
stitute a day's satisfactory achievement. But 
Roosevelt was indefatigable. '* Now," he said with 
gusto, contemplating the magnificent antlers, " we'll 
go out to-night and get a bear." 

But that night they found nothing. Returning 
next day with Merrifield for the carcass of the elk, 
however, they found that a grizzly had been feeding 
on it. They crouched in hiding for the bear's 
return. Night fell, owls began to hoot dismally 
from the tops of the tall trees, and a lynx wailed 
from the depths of the woods, but the bear did not 
come. 

Early next morning they were again at the elk 
carcass. The bear had evidently eaten his fill 
during the night. His tracks were clear, and they 
followed them noiselessly over the yielding carpet of 
moss and pine-needles, to an elk- trail leading into 
a tangled thicket of young spruces. 

Suddenly Merrifield sank on one knee, turning 
half round, his face aflame with excitement. 
Roosevelt strode silently past him, his gun ** at 
the ready." 

There, not ten steps off, was the great bear, 



ROOSEVELT GETS HIS BEAR 187 

slowly rising from his bed among the young spruces. 
He had heard the hunters and reared himself on 
his haunches. Seeing them, he dropped again on 
all-fours, and the shaggy hair on his neck and 
shoulders bristled as he turned toward them. 

Roosevelt aimed fairly between the small, glitter- 
ing eyes, and fired. 

Doubtless my face was pretty white [Roosevelt 
wrote " Bamie " a week later,] but the blue barrel was 
as steady as a rock as I glanced along it until I could 
see the top of the bead fairly between his two sinister- 
looking eyes; as I pulled the trigger I jumped aside 
out of the smoke, to be ready if he charged, but it was 
needless, for the great brute was struggling in his death 
agony, and as you will see when I bring home his skin, 
the bullet hole was as exactly between his eyes as if I 
had measured the distance with a carpenter's rule. 

At last, one cool morning, when the branches of 
the evergreens were laden with the feathery snow 
that had fallen overnight, the hunters struck camp, 
and in single file, with the pack-ponies laden with 
the trophies of the hunt, moved down through the 
woods and across the canyons to the edge of the 
great table-land, then slowly down the steep slope 
to its foot, where they found the canvas-topped 
wagon. Next day they set out on the three-hundred- 
mile journey home to the Maltese Cross. 

For once I have made a very successful hunting trip 
[Roosevelt wrote " Bamie " from Fort McKinney.] I 
have just come out of the mountains and will start at 
once for the Little Missouri, which I expect to reach in 



i88 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

a fortnight, and a week afterwards will be on my way 
home. Merrifield killed two bears and three elk; he has 
been an invaluable guide for game, and of course the 
real credit for the bag rests with him, for he found most 
of the animals. But I really shot well this time. Merri- 
field, who is a perfectly fearless and reckless man, has 
no more regard for a grizzly bear than he has for a jack- 
rabbit; the last one he killed, he wished to merely break 
his leg with the first shot "so as to see what he'd do." 
I had not at all this feeling, and fully realized that we 
were hunting dangerous game ; still I never made steadier 
shooting than at the grizzlies. I had grand sport with 
the elk, too, and the woods fairly rang with my shout- 
ing when I brought down my first lordly bull, with great 
branching antlers; but after I had begun bear-killing, 
other sport seemed tame. 

So I have had good sport; and enough excitement 
and fatigue to prevent overmuch thought; and, more- 
over, I have at last been able to sleep well at night. But 
unless I was bear-hunting all the time I am afraid I 
should soon get as restless with this life as with the life 
at home. 



XI 

The rattlesnake bites you, the scorpion stings, 

The mosquito delights you with buzzing wings; 

The sand-burrs prevail, and so do the ants, 

And those who sit down need half-soles on their pants. 

Cowboy song 

The day that Roosevelt started south on his journey 
to the mountains, Sewall returned north down the 
river to rejoin his nephew. Will Dow was watching 
the cattle on the plateau a few miles south of 
Elkhorn Bottom, near the mouth of the defile 
which the cowboys called Shipka Pass. 

" You never looked so good to me," he said to 
Sewall that night, " as 3'ou did when I saw your head 
coming up the Shipka Pass." 

They worked together among the cattle for an- 
other two or three weeks. They were on the best 
of terms with Captain Robins by this time, for there 
was much to like and much to respect in the gruff, 
dark little seafaring man, who had suffered ship- 
wreck in more w^ays than one, and was out on the 
plains because of a marriage that had gone on the 
rocks. He was an excellent man with the horses, 
and good company about a camp-fire, for some- 
where he had picked up an education and was well- 
informed. He gave the two tenderfeet a good 
training in the rudiments of " cattle-punching," 
sending first one and then the other off to distant 
round-ups to test their abilities among strangers. 



190 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Sewall proved unadaptable, for he was rather old 
to learn new tricks so far removed from the activi- 
ties that were familiar to him; but Dow became a 
" cow-hand " overnight. 

Experience was not greatly mollifying Sewall' s 
opinion of the region in which his lot had been cast. 

The sun when it shines clear [he wrote his brother 
Sam after he had been in the Bad Lands six weeks] 
strikes the bare sides of the Buttes and comes down on 
the treeless bottoms hot enough to make a Rattlesnake 
pant. If you can get in the shade there is most always a 
breeze. The grand trouble is you can't get in the shade. 
There's no shade to get into and the great sandy Desert 
is cool compared with some of the gulches, but as you 
ride it is not quite so bad. The Ponys when they are up 
to some trick are lively and smart, all other times they 
are tired, are very tame and look very meek and gentle. 
But just let one of them get the start of you in any way 
and you are left. Am glad to say mine has never really 
got the start yet. We have had a number of differences 
and controverseys, but my arguments have always pre- 
vailed so far. 

About the middle of September, the two back- 
woodsmen moved down to Elkhorn Bottom, leaving 
Robins in charge of the cattle. Dow went away on 
a round-up and Sewall undertook to put in livable 
shape a dugout that stood on the river-bank some 
thirty or forty yards from the place which Roosevelt 
had, on a previous visit, selected as the site for the 
ranch-house which Sewall and Dow were to build. 
The shack had belonged to a hunter who had left 
the country, and was- not sumptuous in its fittings. 



CHIMNEY BUTTE RANCH. 
Thkodokk Koohkvklt, Proprietor. 
Frrbis <k Mkkrifikld, Mana«;erH. 

P. O. address. 
Little Missouri, 
1>. T. Range, 
Little Missouri, 
8 miles south 
of railroad. 

as in cut 
I on left 
hip and 
rii<ht 




w I I it 1 1 1 1 

side, 
eithe! 



botli 



or 



down (Hit dewlap 
Horse brand, 



* 



on left liip. 



ELKHOIIX RANCH. 

Thkodokk Rooskvklt, Proprietor. 
Skavv'alt. *fe Dow, Managers. 



P. O. address, Lit- 
tle Miss«)uri, 1). T. 

Range, Little Mis- 
souri, twenty-tive 
miles n()rth of rail- 
road. 





as in cut, on 
/left side, A 
/jou riglit,^Jk 
/) or the re- 
verse. 
Horse brand, 
* on- right or 
Aleft should- 



ROOSEVELT'S BRANDS 



i 



RUMBLINGS FROM THE MARQUIS 191 

Dow returned from the round-up with interesting 
news. The Marquis, it seemed, had by no means 
resigned his claim to the territory on which Roose- 
velt had estabHshed "squatter's rights." Dow over- 
heard one of the Marquis's men confiding to another 
that " there'd be some dead men round that Elkhorn 
shack some day." 

Sewall received the news with calm satisfaction. 
" Well," he drawled, " if there's going to be any 
dead men hereabouts, I cal'late we can fix it so 
it won't be us." 

Sewall and Dow began cutting timber for the 
house in a thick grove of cottonwoods two or three 
hundred yards from the river, keeping a weather 
eye open for trouble. A day or two after Dow's 
return from the round-up, one of the Marquis's 
men rode up to them where they were working. 

" There's a vigilance committee around, I 
hear," hs remarked casually. " You haven't seen 
anything of 'em yet hereabouts, have you? I hear 
they're considerin' makin' a call on you folks." 

The men from Maine said to each other that the 
thing began to look " smoky." They consulted 
Captain Robins, who agreed that " smoky " was 
the word, and they carried rifles after that when 
they went to cut timber. 

For they knew very well that the hint which the 
Marquis's man had lightly thrown out was no idle 
attempt at intimidation based on nothing but the 
hope that the Easterners were timid. The activities 
of Granville Stuart's raiders had stimulated the 



192 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

formation of other vigilance committees, inspired 
in part by less lofty motives than those which 
impelled the president of the Montana Stock- 
growers' Association and his friends. On the border 
between Dakota and Montana a company of rough 
characters who called themselves vigilantes began 
to make themselves the topic of excited conversa- 
tion. They were said to be after horse-thieves, but 
it became noticeable that their activities seemed to 
be directed mainly against the small ranchers on 
the edge of the Bad Lands. It was rumored that 
certain large ranchmen were backing them in the 
hope of driving the " nesters " out of the country. 

The cowmen here are opposed, not only to the In- 
dians, but also to white settlers [wrote the Western 
correspondent of the New York Sun]. They want the 
land these white and red settlers are taking up. Vast 
tracts — uncultivated ranges, not settlements — are 
what they desire. The small holder — the man with 
a little bunch of cattle — is not wanted. They freeze 
him out. Somehow he loses cattle, or they are killed 
by parties unknown. 

Sewall and Dow had a right to keep their guns 
near them while they were at work in the grove on 
Elkhorn Bottom. 

Meanwhile, the endeavors of Granville Stuart's 
vigilantes were having their results. The precipitous 
methods of the " stranglers," as they were grimly 
called, began to give the most hardened " the 
creeps." Who the " stranglers " themselves were, 
nobody seemed to know. It was rumored, on the 



THE STRANGLERS 193 

one hand, that they included the biggest ranch- 
owners in the Northwest; on the other hand, it 
was stated that they were bands of lawless Texans 
driven out of the Panhandle and hired by the ranch- 
men at thirty dollars a month " to clean up the 
country." Whoever they were, they moved swiftly 
and acted without hesitation. The newspapers said 
little about them, partly because they knew little, 
partly because there w^as a general tacit under- 
standing that the whole thing, though necessar>% 
was a disagreeable business, and the less said of 
it the better. 

The truth seems to be that behind the whole 
movement to rid eastern Montana and western 
Dakota of the horse-thieves was a loose organiza- 
tion of cattlemen of which Granville Stuart and his 
friends were the directing heads. What funds were 
needed they provided. They designated, moreover, 
certain responsible men in the different round-up 
districts, to whom subordinate bands of the 
" stranglers " reported from time to time for orders. 
Each subordinate band operated independently of 
the others, and the leader in one district knew 
nothing as a rule of the operations of the other 
bands. He told the " stranglers " what men to 
** get," and that was all; and a day or two later a 
man here and a man there would be found dangling 
from a cottonwood. 

In certain cases, Packard, who successfully com- 
bined the functions of law officer and news-gatherer, 
knew beforehand what men were to be hanged. On 



194 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

one occasion he was informed that two notorious 
characters were to be done away with on the fol- 
lowing Thursday. The operations of the stranglers 
were as a rule terrifyingly punctual, and as Thursday 
was the day on which the Cowboy went to press, he 
announced in it, with an awful punctuality of his 
own, the sudden demise of the thieves in question. 

He carried the papers to the depot to put them on 
the afternoon train bound for the west, for the 
Cowboy was popular with the passengers and he 
disposed of an edition of seven or eight hundred 
weekly with them in excess of his regular edition. 
As he was about to step on the train, two men 
stepped down. They were the horse-thieves whose 
death he had too confidently announced. 

He stared at them, shocked to the marrow, feeling 
as though he had seen ghosts. Would they stay in 
Medora, or would they go on to where frontier 
justice was awaiting them? Would they see the 
announcement in the Cowboy ? He remembered 
that they could not read. 

Fascinated, he watched them. The train started. 
The two men jumped aboard. 

That night they were hanged. 

Exactly what relation the vigilance committee 
which was seeking to drive the " nesters " out of 
western Montana bore to Granville Stuart's organ- 
ization, is difficult to determine. They had probably 
originally been one of the subordinate bands, 
who were " feeling their oats," and, under the 
pretense of " cleaning up the country," were clean- 



THE BAND OF FLOPPING BILL 195 

ing up personal scores. The captain of the band 
was a man called " Flopping Bill," a distinctly 
shady character, and the band itself was made up 
of irresponsible creatures who welcomed the op- 
portunity to do, in the cause of righteousness, a 
number of things for which under ordinary cir- 
cumstances they would have been promptly hanged. 
Their first act as a body was to engage a French 
Canadian named Louis La Pache as guide. La 
Pache was himself awaiting trial at Miles City 
for horse-stealing, but there is no indication in the 
records that he was chosen because he was ready 
to turn State's evidence. He was merely the type 
that Flopping Bill's guardians of law and order 
would naturally choose. 

The raiders began their activities near the mouth 
of Beaver Creek, not ten miles from the spot where 
Sewall and Dow (with their rifles at hand) were 
hewing timber for the new house. Two cowpunchers 
had recently started a ranch there. They were 
generally considered honest, but the vigilantes had 
marked them for destruction, and descended upon 
the ranch ready to hang any one in sight. They 
found only a hired man, an Englishman-, for the 
ranchmen had got wind of the raid and fled; and 
spent their enthusiasm for order in " allowing the 
Englishman to feel the sansation of a lariat round 
his neck," as the record runs, releasing him on his 
promise to leave the country forever. Thereupon 
they nailed a paper, signed with skull and cross- 
bones, on the door of the cabin ordering the ranch- 



196 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

men " to vacate "; and proceeded to other pastures. 

They stopped at a half dozen ranches, terrorizing 
and burning, but catching no horse-thieves. It is 
impossible through the obscurity that shrouds the 
grim events of that autumn to determine to what 
extent they were honestly in pursuit of law-breakers 
or were merely endeavoring, at the behest of some 
of the great cattle-owners, to drive the small stock- 
men out of the country. Their motives were pos- 
sibly mixed. The small ranchers were notoriously 
not always what they seemed. Most of the horse- 
thieves posed as "nesters," hiding in underground 
stables by day the horses they stole by night. Each 
registered his own brand and sometimes more than 
one; but the brands were carefully contrived. If 
you intended, for instance, to prey on the great herds 
of the ''Long X outfit," thus X, you called your 
brand "Four Diamonds," marking it thus <$>. A 
quick fire and a running iron did the trick. It was all 
very simple and very profitable and if you were 
caught there was always a Certain Person (to whom 
you were accustomed to give an accounting), and 
beyond him a vague but powerful Somebody Else 
to stand between you and the law. There would be 
no trial, or, if there were a trial, there would be no 
witnesses, or. If there were witnesses, there would be 
a lenient judge and a skeptical jury. The methods 
of Flopping Bill's party were no doubt reprehensible, 
but in attacking some of the little "nesters" the 
raiders came close to the heart of many troubles. 

But indiscriminate terrorizing by any one in any 



FIFTEEN MARKED MEN 197 

cause was not to the taste of the ranchmen up 
and down the Little Missouri who happened to be 
law-abiding. The raiders were starting prairie fires, 
moreover, with the purpose evidently of destroying 
the pasture of the small stockmen, and were in 
consequence vitally affecting the interests of every 
man who owned cattle anywhere in the valley. 
That these acts of vandalism were the work of a 
body from another Territory, invading the Bad 
Lands for purposes of reform, did not add greatly 
to their popularity. The ranchmen set about to or- 
ganize a vigilance committee of their own to repel 
the invaders, if necessary, by force. 

Whether the raiders got wind of this purpose is 
not known, but they evidently decided that they 
had overplayed their hand, for they suddenly 
veered in their course and troubled the Bad Lands 
no more. But before they went they dropped a 
bomb which did more than many conflagrations to 
carry out their ostensible mission as discouragers 
of evil-doing. 

It happened that not far from Elkhorn Bottom 
the vigilantes came upon Pierce Bolan, who, it 
will be remembered, had some time previous dis- 
coursed to Fisher on the merits of the " considerate 
treatment " in relations with horse-thieves. He was 
himself as honest as daylight, but, as ill-luck would 
have it, the raiders found him afoot, and, assuming 
that he was about to steal a horse, called on him to 
confess. He declared that he had nothing to confess. 
The raiders thereupon threw a rope around his 



198 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

neck and drew him up in such a way that his feet 
just touched the ground. The victim continued 
to proclaim his innocence and the vigilantes finally 
released him, but not until he was unconscious. 
When he came to, the raiders were gone, but near-by 
he found a paper possibly dropped not altogether 
inadvertently. It bore the names of fifteen men 
along the Little Missouri whom Granville Stuart's 
committee had marked for punishment. 

What Bolan did with the list, to whom he showed 
the list, in what way he reached the men whose 
names were on the list — all that is lost to history. 
All that we know is that there was a great scattering 
during the succeeding days, and certain men who 
w^ere thought most reputable discovered suddenly 
that they had pressing business in California or 
New York. 

" I never saw a full list of the names on that 
paper," said Fisher years afterward, " and knew 
nothing of what was going on until two of them 
came to me about the matter. They found that I 
was really ignorant and then asked what I would 
do if in their place. I advised hiding out for a while 
until matters had cooled off, which they did." 

Who the men were whose names were on that list 
is a secret which those who held it never revealed 
and inquisitive minds along the Little Missouri 
could never definitely solve. Rumor suggested this 
man and that whose ways had been devious, but 
only one name was ever mentioned with certainty. 
That name was Maunders. No one seemed to 



MAUNDERS THE DISCREET 199 

question that if any one was going to be hanged, 
Maunders was the most Hkely candidate. 

That gentleman, meanwhile, was fully aware that 
he had been marked for slaughter, but he kept his 
head, and, trusting no doubt to the protection of 
the Marquis, calmly remained in Medora, refusing 
by flight to present his enemies with evidence of an 
uneasy conscience. To his friends he declared that 
Fisher alone was responsible for having his name 
placed on the list, and breathed dire threats against 
the manager of the Marquis's Refrigerator Company. 

Fisher was not greatly disturbed by the rumors 
that reached him of Maunders's determination to 
kill him at the first opportunity. He even went 
hunting alone with the outwardly affable " bad 
man." 

Some of the " boys " thought he was taking un- 
necessary risks, and told him so. " You're taking 
a big chance in going out alone with Maunders. 
He's got it in for you." 

Fisher smiled. " Perhaps you haven't noticed," 
he said, " that I always make certain that one or 
the other of you fellows sees us leave. Maunders 
would break his neck to see me get back safely." 

Unquestionably, Maunders had an almost over- 
developed bump of caution. He left Fisher un- 
harmed and turned his attention to the two back- 
woodsmen from Maine who were holding down the 
most desirable claim north of Medora for an Eastern 
tenderfoot. 

One Sunday morning late in September Sewall 



200 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

was alone in the dugout at the river- bank. Dow was 
off on a stroll and Sewall was writing his weekly 
letter home, when he suddenly heard hoof-beats 
punctuated with shots. He went to the door. Six 
rough-looking characters on horseback were outside 
with smoking rifles in their hands. He knew only 
one of them, but he was evidently the leader. It 
was Maunders. Sewall took in the situation and 
invited them all inside. 

The men had been drinking, and, suspecting 
that they would be hungry, Sewall offered them 
food. Dow was an excellent cook and in the ashes 
of the hearth was a pot of baked beans, intended 
for their own midday meal. Sewall, keeping care- 
fully within reach of one or the other of his weapons 
which hung on the wall, set the pot before the evil- 
faced gunmen. 

Maunders, who was slightly drunk, ate raven- 
ously and directly began to sing the praises of the 
beans. Sewall filled his plate, and filled it again. 

" I thought I would do ever^^thing I could to 
make them comfortable," he remarked, telling 
about it later, " and then if they cooked up any 
racket we should have to see what the end Avould 
be. I knew that if they were well filled, it would 
have a tendency to make them good-natured, and 
besides that it puts a man |in rather an awkward 
position, when he's got well treated, to start a 
rumpus." 

Sewall watched the men unostentatiously, but 
with an eagle eye. He had made up his mind that 



SEWALL RECEIVES CALLERS 201 

if there were to be any dead men thereabouts 
Maunders was to be the first. " He being the leader 
I thought I would make sure of him whatever 
happened to me." 

He noted, not without satisfaction, that the men 
were looking around the cabin, regarding the wea- 
pons with attention. He showed Maunders about. 
The gunman agreed without enthusiasm that they 
had " got things fixed up in very fine shape," and 
departed. He treated Sewall most affably there- 
after, but the backwoodsmen were made aware in 
one way and another that the old mischief-maker 
had not yet given up the idea of driving Theodore 
Roosevelt and his " outfit " off the claim at Elkhorn 
Bottom. 



XII 

It was underneath the stars, the little peeking stars, 

That we lay and dreamed of Eden in the hills; 
We were neither sad nor gay, but just wondering, while we lay, 

What a mighty lot of space creation fills. 

Our fire was just a spark; dot of red against the dark, 

And around the fire an awful lot of night. 
The purple, changing air was as quiet as a prayer, • 

And the moon came up and froze the mountains white. 

Henry Herbert Knibbs 

The " boss " of Elkhorn Ranch, meanwhile, oblivi- 
ous of the heat which he was generating in the 
Marquis's Prime Minister, was taking his slow 
course northeastward across Wyoming to the Bad 
Lands. It was long and weary traveling across 
the desolate reaches of burnt prairie. The horses 
began to droop. At last, in som.e heavy sand-hills 
east of the Little Beaver, one of the team pulling 
the heavily laden wagon played out completely, 
and they had to put the toughest of the saddle 
ponies in his place. Night was coming on fast 
as they crossed the final ridge and came in sight 
of as singular a bit of country as any of them had 
ever seen. Scattered over a space not more than 
three quarters of a mile square were countless iso- 
lated buttes of sandstone, varying in height from 
fifteen to fifty feet. Some of them rose as sharp 
peaks or ridges or as connected chains, but the 
greater number by far were topped with diminutive 
table-lands, some thirty feet across, some seventy, 




FANTASTIC FORMATION AT MEDICINE BUTTES 




MEDICINE BUTTES 



MEDICINE BUTTES 203 

some two hundred. The sides were perpendicular, 
and were cut and channeled by the weather into 
most curious caves and columns and battlements 
and spires. Here and there ledges ran along the 
faces of the cliffs and eerie protrusions jutted out 
from the corners. Grave pine-trees rose loftily 
among the strange creations of water and wind set 
in a desert of snow-white sand. It was a beautiful 
and fantastic place and they made their camp there. 

The moon was full and the night clear. In an 
angle of a cliff they built a roaring pine-log fire 
whose flames, leaping up the gray wall, made wild 
sport of the bold corners and strange-looking 
escarpments of the rock. Beyond the circle that 
the firelight brought luridly to life, the buttes in 
the moonlight had their own still magic. Against 
the shining silver of the cliffs the pines showed 
dark and somber, and when the branches stirred, 
the bright light danced on the ground making it 
appear like a sheet of molten metal. 

It was like a countr}^ seen in a dream. 

The next morning all was changed. A*wild gale 
was blowing and rain beat about them in level 
sheets. A wet fog came and went and gave place 
at last to a steady rain, as the gale gave place to 
a hurricane. They spent a miserable day and night 
shifting from shelter to shelter with the shifting 
wind; another day and another night. Their pro- 
visions were almost gone, the fire refused to burn 
in the fierce downpour, the horses drifted far ofi 
before the storm. . . . 



204 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" Fortunately," remarked Roosevelt later, " we 
had all learned that, no matter how bad things 
were, grumbling and bad temper can always be 
depended upon to make them worse, and so bore 
our ill-fortune, if not with stoical indifference, at 
least in perfect quiet." 

The third day dawned crisp and clear, and once 
more the wagon lumbered on. They made camp 
that night some forty miles southwest of Lang's. 
They were still three days from home, three days 
of crawling voyaging beside the fagged team. The 
country was monotonous, moreover, without much 
game. 

" I think I'd like to ride in and wake the boys 
up for breakfast," remarked Merrifield. 

" Good!" exclaimed Roosevelt. " I'll do it with 
you." 

Merrifield argued the matter. Roosevelt had 
been in the saddle all day and it was eighty miles 
to the Maltese Cross. 

"I'm going with you. I want to wind up this 
trip myself," said Roosevelt, and there the argument 
ended. 

At nine o'clock they saddled their tough little 
ponies, and rode off out of the circle of firelight. 
The October air was cool in their faces as they loped 
steadily mile after mile over the moonlit prairie. 

Roosevelt later described that memorable ride. 

The hoof -beats of our horses rang out in steady rhythm 
through the silence of the night, otherwise unbroken 
save now and then by the wailing cry of a coyote. The 



ROOSEVELT RETURNS TO ELKHORN 205 

rolling plains stretched out on all sides of us, shimmer- 
ing in the clear moonlight; and occasionally a band of 
spectral-looking antelope swept silently away from 
before our path. Once we went by a drove of Texan 
cattle, who stared wildly at the intruders; as we passed 
they charged down by us, the ground rumbling beneath 
their tread, while their long horns knocked against each 
other with a sound like the clattering of a multitude 
of castanets. We could see clearly enough to keep our 
general course over the trackless plain, steering by the 
stars where the prairie was perfectly level and without 
landmarks; and our ride was timed well, for as we gal- 
loped down into the valley of the Little Missouri the 
sky above the line of the level bluffs in our front was 
crimson with the glow of the unrisen sun. 

Roosevelt rode down to Elkhorn a day or two 
after his return to the Maltese Cross, and found 
Sewall and Dow busy cutting the timber for the 
new house, which was to stand in the shade of a row 
of Cottonwood trees overlooking the broad, shallow 
bed of the Little Missouri. They were both mighty 
men with the axe. Roosevelt worked with them 
for a few days. He himself was no amateur, but 
he could not compete with the stalwart back- 
woodsmen. 

One evening he overheard Captain Robins ask 
Dow what the day's cut had been. '* Well, Bill cut 
down fifty- three," answered Dow. " I cut forty- 
nine, and the boss," he added dryly, not realizing 
that Roosevelt was within hearing — "the boss 
he beavered down seventeen." 

Roosevelt remembered the tree-stumps he had 
seen gnawed down by beavers, and grinned. 



2o6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt found that the men from Maine were 
adapting themselves admirably to their strange 
surroundings. Dow was already an excellent cow- 
hand. Sewall's abilities ran in other directions. 

We are hewing away at the stuff for the house [Sewall 
wrote his brother on October 19th]. It is to be 60 ft. 
long and 30 wide, the walls 9 ft. high, so you can see it 
is quite a job to hew it out on three sides, but we have 
plenty of time. Theodore wants us to ride and explore 
one day out of each week and we have to go to town 
after our mail once a week, so we don't work more 
than, half the time. It is a good job and a big one, 
but we have lots of time between this and spring. 

Meanwhile, he stubbornly insisted that the coun- 
try was not adapted to cattle. 

I think I already see a good many drawbacks to this 
country [he wrote]. The Stock business is a new busi- 
ness in the Bad Lands and I can't find as anybody 
has made anything at it, yet they all expect to. I 
think ,they have all lost as yet. Talked the other day 
with one of the biggest Stock men here. He is hired by 
the month to boss. He said nobody knew whether 
there was anything in it or not, yet. He had been 
here three years and sometimes thought there was not 
much in it, said it was very expensive and a great 
many outs to it and I believe he told the truth. Out 
about town they blow it up, want to get everybody at 
it they can. We shall see in time. Can tell better in the 
spring after we see how they come in with their cattle. 

The truth was, Bill knew the ways of cattle, for 
he had run cattle in the open in Maine under cli- 
matic conditions not dissimilar to those of the 
Dakota country. His experience had taught him 



MAUNDERS THREATENS ROOSEVELT 207 

that when a cow Is allowed to have one calf after 
another without special feeding, she is more than 
likely to die after the third calf. He knew also 
that when a cow calves in cold weather, she is 
likely to freeze her udder and be ruined, and lose the 
calf besides. 

" Those cows will either have to be fed," he said 
to Roosevelt, '* or they'll die." 

Roosevelt took Sewall's pessimism with a grain 
of salt. " No one hereabouts seems to think there's 
any danger of that sort," he said. " I think, Bill, 
you're wrong." 

" I hope I am," said Bill; and there the matter 
dropped. 

It was while Roosevelt was working at Elkhorn 
that further rumors of trouble cam.e from the party 
of the Marquis. Maunders insisted that he had a 
prior claim to the shack in which Sewall and Dow 
w^ere living and all the land that lay around it, 
and demanded five hundred dollars for his rights. 
Roosevelt had from the first scouted the claim, for 
Maunders had a way of claiming any shack which 
a hunter deserted anywhere. Vague threats which 
Maunders was making filled the air, but did not 
greatly disturb Roosevelt. Sewall and Dow, how- 
ever, had heard a rumor which sounded authentic 
and might require attention. Maunders had said 
that he was going to shoot Roosevelt at the next 
opportunity. They passed the news on to " the 
boss." 

This was decidedly interesting. Maunders was 



2o8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

known as a good shot and was well protected by 
the Marquis. 

Roosevelt promptly saddled his horse and rode 
back up the river. Maunders's shack stood on the 
west bank a few hundred yards from the Pyramid 
Park Hotel. Roosevelt knocked on the door. 
Maunders opened it. 

" Maunders," said Roosevelt sharply, " I under- 
stand that you have threatened to kill me on sight. 
I have come over to see when you want to begin 
the killing and to let you know that, if you have 
anything to say against me, now is the time for you 
to say it." 

Maunders looked unhappy. After a brief conversa- 
tion it appeared that Maunders did not after all want 
to shoot him. He had been " misquoted," he said. 
They parted, understanding one another perfectly. 

Roosevelt left Medora on October 7th, bound for 
New York. He had decided, after all, not to remain 
aloof from the political campaign. He deeply dis- 
trusted the Democratic Party, on the one hand, and 
he was enraged at the nominations of the Repub- 
Hcan Party, on the other; but the " Mugwumps," 
those Republicans who, with a self-conscious high- 
mindedness which irritated him almost beyond 
w^ords, were supporting the Democratic nominee, 
he absolutely despised. Besides, it was not in him 
to be neutral in any fight. He admitted that freely. 
During the final weeks of the campaign he made 
numerous speeches in New York and elsewhere 
which were not neutral in the least. 



PACKARD'S STAGE-LINE 209 

By leaving Medora on the 7th of October he 
missed a memorable occasion, for on the following 
day Packard at last opened his stage-line. The 
ex-baseball player had met and surmounted an ar- 
ray of obstacles that would have daunted anybody 
but a youngster on the Western frontier. He had 
completed his building operations by the end of 
September, and by the first of October he had 
distributed his hostlers, his eating-house keepers, 
his helpers and his " middle-route " drivers, among 
the sixteen relay-stations that lined the wheel- 
tracks which the Marquis was pleased to call the 
" highway " to the Black Hills. The horses which 
he had purchased in a dozen different places in the 
course of the summer were not such as to allay 
the trepidation of timid travelers. They had none 
of them been broken to harness before Packard's 
agents had found them and broken them in their 
own casual and none too gentle fashion. Packard 
would have preferred to have horses which had be- 
come accustomed to the restraining hand of man, 
but " harness- broke " horses were rare in that 
country. Besides, they were expensive, and, with 
the money coming from the Marquis only in little 
sums, long-delayed, Packard that summer was 
hunting bargains. As it was. Baron von Hoffman, 
who was a business man of vision and ability, was 
none too pleased with the mounting expenses of his 
son-in-law's new venture. 

" How many horses have you bought? " he asked 
Packard one day rather sharply. 



2IO ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" A hundred and sixty-six." 

" How many are you using on the stage-line? " 

" A hundred and sixty." 

" What are you doing with the other six? " 

" They're out on the line." 

" Humph! " grunted the Baron in despair. " Eat- 
ing their heads off ! " 

What the Baron said to the Marquis is lost to 
history. The family in the new house across the 
river from Medora had plenty of dignity and pride. 
Whatever disagreements they had they kept se- 
curely within their own walls, and there was nothing 
but a growing querulousness in the voice of the 
man who held the purse-strings to reveal to the 
world that Baron von Hoffman was beginning to 
think he was laying away his money in a hole that 
had no bottom. Something of that feeling seems 
to have been in the Marquis's own mind, for in 
the interviews he gave to the newspapers the words 
" I won't be bled " recur. 

On the first of October, Packard was ready for 
the " dress rehearsal " of his stage-line. That per- 
formance partook of more than the usual quantity 
of hazard connected with such occasions. At every 
station, for instance, some or all of the six horses 
had to be roped, thrown, and blindfolded before 
they would let themselves be harnessed. To adjust 
the harness was itself a ticklish undertaking and 
had to be done with minute regard for sensitive 
nerves, for if any part of it struck a horse except 
with the pressure of its own weight, the devil was 



THE DRESS REHEARSAL 211 

loose again, and anything might happen. But 
even when the harness was finally on the refractory 
backs, the work was not half done. Still blind- 
folded, the horses had to be driven, pulled, pushed, 
and hauled by main force to their appointed places 
in front of the coach. Noiselessly, one at a time, the 
tugs were attached to the single-tree, and carefully, 
as though they were dynamite, the reins were handed 
to the driver. At the Moreau Station, two thirds 
of the way to Deadwood, all six horses, it happened 
were practically unbroken broncos. The driver w^as 
on his box with Packard at his side, as they prepared 
to start, and at the head of each horse stood one 
of the station-hands. 

" Ready? " asked the man at the head of the 
near leader. 

" All set," answered the other helpers. 

" Let 'er go! " called the driver. 

The helpers jerked the blinds from the horses' 
eyes. The broncos jumped into their collars as a 
unit. As a unit, however, they surged back, as they 
became suddenly conscious of the horror that they 
dreaded most — restraint. The off leader made a 
wild swerve to the right, backing toward the coach, 
and dragging the near leader and the near swing- 
horse from their feet. The off leader, unable to 
forge ahead, made a Wild leap for the off swing 
horse, and fairly crushed him to earth with his 
feet, himself tripping on the harness and rolling at 
random in the welter, his snapping hoofs flashing 
in every direction. The wheel team, in the mean- 



212 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

time, was doing what Packard later described as 
" a vaudeville turn of its own." The near wheeler 
was bucking as though there were no other horse 
within a hundred miles; the off wheeler had broken 
his single-tree and was facing the coach, delivering 
kicks at the melee behind him with whole-hearted 
abandon and rigid impartiality. 

" It was exactly the kind of situation," Packard 
remarked later, " that George Myers would have 
called ' a gol-darned panorama.' " 

But the horses were not to have matters altogether 
their own way, for the helpers w^ere experienced 
" horse- wranglers." By main strength they pulled 
the off leader to his place and blindfolded him, 
delegating one of their number to sit on his head 
until the snarl might be untangled. The process 
was repeated with the other horses. The damage 
proved to be negligible. A few small harness straps 
had snapped, and a single-tree was broken. A 
second trial resulted no better than the first. After 
the half-crazy animals had been a second time 
disentangled and a third time harnessed, quivering, 
to the coach, the driver had his way with them. 
The horses jumped forward into a wild run, thrash- 
ing the heavy coach about as a small boy might be 
thrashed about as the tail in " crack the whip." 
It was a wild ride, but they reached Spearfish with 
no bones broken. 

" Our entrance into Dead wood was spectacular," 
said Packard later, " and ended in an invitation 
ride to Lead City with Mayor Seth Bullock at the 



-'aillipiwr_ 



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■^^piTc^'tzfc 






REGULAR LINE OF COACHES PO 



7iTiTTISltrTW;<H;4iJ 



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CONNCCTINC WITH THK 



NORTHERN PACIFIC R.R/ NEDDRA 

SHORTEST AND MOST COMFORTABLE ROUTE PASSIRG rHROUOH 
THEMOST IHTEHESTIMQ PORTIOMS OFTHE FAHOUS 

BAD LANDS 

PRQUiSETlUiQINIH nCKETS TOBEMlflflllBVlAliMfllEWIPAaFICIHailBlflliA 



POSTER OF THE MARQUIS DE MORESS DEADWOOD STAGE-LINE 



ANOTHER BUBBLE BURSTS 213 

head of the local dignitaries, riding in state inside 
the coach." 

On the 8th of October, Packard offered the 
dubious joys of his stage-line for the first time to 
the public; and began to see a faint prospect of 
return on his rather extravagant investment of 
energy and time. But his satisfaction died still- 
born. The Marquis's sanguine temperament had 
once more proved the undoing of what might have 
been a profitable venture. The mail contract, which 
the easy-going Frenchman had thought that he 
had secured, proved illusory. Packard, who had 
been glad to leave that part of the business to his 
principal, discovered, as soon as he began to inquire 
for the mail-bags, that what his principal had actu- 
ally secured from the Postmaster-General was not 
a contract at all, but merely a chance to bid when 
the annual offers for star routes came up for bidding 
the following May. It was a body blow to the 
putative owner of a stage-line. 

Long after the last of his Deadwood coaches had 
been rattled to kindlings in Buffalo Bill's Wild 
West Show, Packard told the last chapter of his 
connection with the Medora and Black Hills 
Forwarding and Transportation Company. 

" No mail contract; hardly a month of earnings 
before winter, when there was no chance of paying 
operating expenses; responsible for the pay-roll, 
but not on it; with a private pay-roll and expenses 
equal to or greater than my private income; with 
all my cash savings gone in the preliminary expenses 



214 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

of putting on the line, and finally with no chance, 
under my contract, of getting a cent from the 
stage-line before that nebulous time when it had 
paid for itself. The Marquis soon returned and I 
told him I could not consider myself bound by the 
contract. The delay in providing funds I had 
condoned by staying with the proposition, but a 
mail contract which was essential in helping to pay 
expenses was not even a possibility for seven or 
more months in the future. I stayed until another 
man was hired and left my duties with a grunt of 
relief." ' 

For Packard the failure of his venture was not a 
serious matter. The Cowboy was flourishing and 
there was enough in all conscience to keep him 
occupied in his duties as Chief of Police. But for 
the Marquis it was bad business. He had, as it was, 
few enough honest men at his side. 

1 It was Packard's stage-line which brought Scipio le Moyne (In 
Owen Wister's novel) from the Black Hills to Medora to become the 
substitute cook of the Virginian's mutinous " outfit." The cook whom 
the Virginian kicked off the train at Medora, because he was too anx- 
ious to buy a bottle of whiskey, is said to have been a man named 
Macdonald. He remained in the Bad Lands as cook for one of the 
ranches, but he was such an inveterate drinker that "Nitch" Kendley 
was forced to take drastic measures. Finding him unconscious one 
day, just outside of Medora, he tied him hand and foot to the sage- 
brush. The cook struggled twelve hours in the broiling sun before he 
could free himself. Tradition has it that he did not touch another 
drop of liquor for three years. 



XIII 

Oh, we're up in the morning ere breaking of day, 

The chuck-wagon's busy, the flapjacks in play; 
The herd is astir o'er hillside and vale. 
With the night riders rounding them into the trail. 

Oh, come take up your cinches, come shake out your reins; 
Come, wake your old bronco and break for the plains; 

Come, roust out your steers from the long chaparral, 

For the outfit is ofT to the railroad corral. 

The Railroad Corral 

Roosevelt returned to the Bad Lands on the i6th 
of November and was greeted with enthusiasm by 
Merrifield and Sylvane. The next day he started 
for the new ranch. He had intended to get under 
way by noon, but Sylvane and Merrifield wanted 
to drive a small beef herd, which they were shipping 
to Chicago, to the shipping corrals near the Can- 
tonment, and it was mid-afternoon before he was 
able to put spurs to his smart little cowpony and 
start on the long ride to Elkhorn. The day was 
bitterly cold, with the mercury well down toward 
zero, and the pony, fresh and impatient, went 
along at a good rate. Roosevelt had not gone many 
miles before he became conscious that darkness was 
falling. The trail followed along the bottom for a 
half-dozen miles and then turned off into the bad 
lands, leading up and down through the ravines 
and over the ridge crests of a rough and broken 
country. He crossed a wide plateau where the 
wind blew savagely, sweeping the powdery snow 
into his face, then dipped again into the valley 



2i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

where the trail led along the bottoms between the 
rows of high bluffs, continually crossing and re- 
crossing the river. The ice was too thin to bear 
the horse, for the cold had come suddenly and had 
not yet frozen it solid, and again and again, as the 
pony cautiously advanced, the white surface would 
suddenly break and let horse and rider down into 
the chilling water. 

Roosevelt had made up his mind that he could 
under no circumstances reach the new ranch that 
night and had determined to spend the night with 
Robins, the seafaring man, whose hut was three or 
four miles nearer. But the sun set while he was still 
several miles from his goal, and the darkness, which 
had been closing round him where he rode in the 
narrow valley, crept over the tops of the high 
bluffs and shut out from his vision everything but 
a dim track in the snow faintly illuminated by the 
stars. Roosevelt hurried his pony. Clouds were 
gathering overhead, and soon, Roosevelt knew, 
even the light that the stars gave would be with- 
drawn. The night was very cold and the silence 
was profound. A light snow rendered even the 
hoof -beats of his horse muffled and indistinct, and 
the only sound that came out of the black world 
about him was the long-drawn, melancholy howling 
of a wolf. 

Captain Robins's shack stood in the midst of a 
large clump of cottonwoods thickly grown up with 
underbrush. It was hard enough to find in the 
day-time, but in the darkness of that wintry night 



BLEAK CAMPING 217 

It proved tantalizingly elusive. There was no light 
in it to guide him, which depressed him. 

He found the cabin at last, but it was empty and 
chill. He lit a fire and hunted about among the 
stores of the old seafaring man for something of 
which to make supper. The place was stripped 
bare. He went down to the river with an axe and 
a pail and brought up some water; in his pocket 
he had a paper of tea. It was not an altogether 
satisfying supper for a tired and hungry man. 

He was out with his rifle at break of day. Outside 
the hut the prairie fowl were crowing and calling 
to one another in the tall trees, evidently attracted 
by the thick growth of choke-cherries and wild 
plums. As the dawn deepened, the sharp-tails 
began to fly down from their roosts to the berry 
bushes. Up among the bare limbs of the trees, 
sharply outlined against the sky, they offered as 
good a target as any hungry man might ask. He 
shot off the necks of five in succession, and it was 
not long before two of the birds, plucked and 
cleaned, were split open and roasting before the fire. 

He found that Sewall and Dow had cut all the 
timber for the house, and were beginning work on 
the walls. It was a roomy place they were build- 
ing, a palace as houses went in the Bad Lands. 
Roosevelt worked with them for two days. Both 
men were excellent company, Dow a delightful 
spinner of yarns, witty and imaginative, Sewall full 
of horse sense and quiet philosophizing. Roosevelt 
himself was much depressed. His virtual elimination 



2i8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

from politics, together with the tragic breaking-iu) 
of his home life, had left him for the moment aim- 
less and without ambition. There is a wistful note 
in a letter he wrote, that week to Lodge. " The 
statesman (?) of the past has been merged, alas, I 
fear for good, in the cowboy of the present." He 
was not in the habit of talking of himself or of asking 
others to share his negations; but there was some- 
thing avuncular about Sewall that impelled confi- 
dences. He told the backwoodsman that he did 
not care what became of himself; he had nothing 
to live for, he said. Sewall " went for him bow- 
legged," as he himself described it in later years. 

" You ought not to allow yourself to feel that 
way," he insisted. "You have your, child to live 
for." 

" Her aunt can take care of her a good deal better 
than I can," Roosevelt responded. " She never 
would know anything about me, anyway. She 
would he just as well off without me." 

" You won't always feel that w^ay," said Sewall. 
" You will get over this after a while. I know how 
such things are; but time heals them over. You 
won't always feel as you do now, and you won't 
always be willing to stay here and drive cattle, 
because, when you get to feeling differently, you 
will want to get back among your friends where 
you can do more and be more benefit to the w^orld 
than you can driving cattle. If you can't think of 
anything else to do, you can go home and start a 
reform. You would make a good reformer. You 



ROOSEVELT STARTS A REFORM 219 

always want to make things better instead of 
worse." 

Roosevelt laughed at that, and said no more 
concerning the uselessness of his existence. An 
amusing angle of the whole matter was that" start- 
ing a reform " was actually in the back of his head 
'at the time. 

The reform in question was fundamental. It 
concerned the creation of an organization, osten- 
sibly, in the absence of constituted government, for 
the purpose of making and enforcing certain sorely 
needed laws for the regulation of the cattle industry; 
but actually with the higher aim in view of furnish- 
ing a rallying point for the scattered forces of law 
and order. Montana had such an organization in 
the Monfana Live Stock Association and more than 
one ranchman with large interests in the valley of 
the Little Missouri had appealed to that body for 
help. But the Montana Association found that it 
had no authority in Dakota. Roosevelt determined, 
therefore, to form a separate organization. 

The need ..unquestionably was great. To an un- 
usual extent the cattle industry depended upon 
cooperation. Each ranchman " claimed " a certain 
range, but no mark showed the boundaries of that 
range and no fence held the cattle and horses within 
it. On every " claim " the brands of twenty dif- 
ferent herds might have been found. No ranchman 
by himself, or with the aid only of his own em- 
ployees, would ever have been able to collect his 
widely scattered property. It was only by the 



220 . ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

cooperative effort known as " the round-up " that 
it was possible once or twice a year for every man 
to gather his own. The very persistence of the 
range as a feeding-ground and the vitality and very 
life of the cattle depended upon the honest coopera- 
tion of the stock-owners. If one man overstocked 
his range, it was not only his cattle which suffered, 
but in an equal measure the cattle of every other 
ranchman along the river. 

Regulating this industry, which depended so 
largely on a self-interest looking beyond the im- 
mediate gain, was a body of tradition brought from 
the cattle ranges of the South, but no code of 
regulations. There were certain unwritten laws 
which you were supposed to obey; but if you were 
personally formidable and your " outfit " was im- 
pressive, there was nothing in heaven or earth to 
force you to obey them. It was comparatively 
simple, moreover, to conduct a private round-up 
and ship to Chicago cattle whose brands were not 
your own. If ever an industry needed "regulation" 
for the benefit of the honest men engaged in it, it 
was the cattle industry in Dakota in 1884. 

But the need of a law of the range which the 
stockmen would respect, because it was to their 
own interests to respect it, was only a phase of a 
greater need for the presence in that wild and 
sparsely settled country of some sort of authority 
which men would recognize and accept because it 
was an outgrowth of the life of which they were 
a part. Sheriffs and marshals were imposed from 



THE DEPUTY MARSHAL 221 

without, and an independent person might have 
argued that in a territory under a Federal gov- 
ernor, they constituted government without the 
consent of the governed. Such a person would look 
with entirely different eyes on a body created from 
among the men with whom he was in daily asso- 
ciation. 

Me'dora was blest with a deputy United States 
Marshal, and much good did law and order derive 
from his presence. He happened to be the same 
Joe Morrill who had gained notoriety the preceding 
winter in the Stoneville fight, and who had long been 
suspected, by law-abiding folk between Medora and 
the Black Hills, of being " in cahoots " with every- 
thing that was sinister in the region. He had for 
years been stationed at Deadwood for the purpose 
mainly of running down deserting soldiers, and one 
of the rumors that followed him to Medora was to 
the effect that he had made himself the confid^t 
of deserters only to betray them for thirty dollars 
a head. The figure was unfortunate. It stuck in 
the memory with its echoes of Judas. 

The law-abiding element did not receive any 
noticeable support from Joe Morrill. He was a 
" gun-toting " swashbuckler, not of the " bad man " 
type at all, but, as Packard pointed out, altogether 
too noisy in denouncing the wicked when they 
were not present and too effusive in greeting them 
when they were. He gravitated naturally toward 
Maunders and Bill Williams and Jess Hogue, and 
if law and order derived any benefits from that 



222 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

association, history has neglected to record them. 
Thievery went on as before. 

Roosevelt, no doubt, realized that the hope of the 
righteous lay not in Joe Morrill or in any other 
individual whom the Federal authorities might im- 
pose on the Bad Lands, but only in an organization 
which was the expression of a real desire for co- 
operation. He set about promptly to form such an 
organization. 

After two days of house-building at Elkhorn, 
Roosevelt, who was evidently restless, was again 
under way, riding south through a snowstorm all 
day to the Maltese Cross, bringing Sewall and Dow 
with him. 

It was late at night when we reached Merrifield's [he 
wrote " Bamie " on November 23d], and the thermom- 
eter was twenty degrees below zero. As you may imag- 
ine, my fur coat and buffalo bag have come in very 
handily. 

I am now trying to get up a stockman's association, 
and in a day or two, unless the weather is too bad, I 
shall start up the river with Sewall to see about it. 

At one ranch after another, Roosevelt, riding 
south through' the biting cold with his philosophic 
backwoodsman, stopped during the week that fol- 
low^ed, to persuade fifteen or twenty stockmen along 
the valley of the Little Missouri of the benefits of 
cooperation. It was an arduous journey, taking 
him well south of Lang's; but it was evidently 
successful. 

Theodore Roosevelt, who used to was a great reformer 



WINTER ACTIVITIES 223 

in the New York Legislature, but who is now a cowboy, 
pure and simple [remarked the Bismarck Weekly Tribune 
in an editorial on December 12th], calls a meeting of the 
stockmen of the West Dakota region to meet at Medora, 
December 19th, to discuss topics of interest, become bet- 
ter acquainted, and provide for a more efiftcient organ- 
ization. Mr. Roosevelt likes the West. 

Winter now settled down on the Bad Lands in 
earnest. There was little snow, but the cold was 
fierce in its intensity. By day, the plains and buttes 
were dazzling to the eye under the clear weather; 
by night, the trees cracked and groaned from the 
strain of the biting frost. Even the stars seemed 
to snap and glitter. The river lay fixed in its shining 
bed of glistening white, " like a huge bent bar of 
blue steel." Wolves and lynxes traveled up and 
down it at night as though it were a highway. 

Winter was the ranchman's "slack season"; 
but Roosevelt found, nevertheless, that there was 
work to be done even at that time of year to test 
a man's fiber. Activities, which in the ordinary 
Eastern winter would have been merely the casual 
incidents of the day's work, took on some of the 
character of Arctic exploration in a country where 
the thermometer had a w^ay of going fifty degrees 
below zero, and for two weeks on end never rose 
above a point of ten below. It was not always 
altogether pleasant to be out of doors; but wood 
had to be chopped, and coal had to be brought in 
by the wagon-load. Roosevelt had a mine on his 
own ranch some three or four miles south of Chimney 



224 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Butte. It was a vein of soft lignite laid bare 'in 
the side of a clay bluff by the corrosive action of 
the water, carving, through the centuries, the bed of 
the Little Missouri. He and his men brought the 
coal in the ranch-wagon over the frozen bed of the 
river. The wheels of the wagon creaked and sang 
in the bitter cold, as they ground through the 
powdery snow. 

The cattle, moreover, had to be carefully watched, 
for many of them were slow in learning to " rustle 
for themselves," as the phrase went. A part of 
every day at least was spent in the saddle by one 
or the other or all of the men who constituted the 
Chimney Butte outfit. In spite of their great fur 
coats and caps and gauntlets, in spite of heavy 
underclothing and flannel-lined boots, it was not 
often that one or the other of them, returning from 
a ride, did not have a touch of the frost somewhere 
about him. When the wind was at his back, 
Roosevelt found it was not^ bad to gallop aloing 
through the white weather, but when he had to 
face it, riding over a plain or a plateau, it was a 
different matter, for the blast cut through him like 
a keen knife, and the thickest furs seemed only so 
much paper. The cattle were obviously unhappy, 
standing humped up under the bushes, except for 
an hour or two at midday when they ventured out 
to feed. A very weak animal ^hey would bring into 
the cow-shed ^and feed with hay ; but they did this 
only in cases of the direst necessity, as such an 
animal had then to be fed for the rest of the winter, 



BREAKING BRONCOS 225 

and the quantity of hay was limited. As long as 
the cattle could be held within the narrow strip of 
Bad Lands, they were safe enough, for the deep 
ravines afforded them ample refuge from the icy 
gales. But if by any accident a herd was caught by 
a blizzard on the open prairie, it might drift before 
it a hundred miles. 

Soon alter Roosevelt's return from the East, he 
had sent Sylvane Ferris to Spearfish to purchase 
some horses for the ranch. About the first week in 
December his genial foreman returned, bringing 
fifty- two head. They were wild, unbroken " cay- 
uses," and had to be broken then and there. Day 
after day, in the icy cold, Roosevelt labored with 
the men in the corral over the refractory animals 
making up in patience what he lacked in physical 
address. 

Bill Sewall, who with Dow was on hand to drive 
a number of the ponies north to Elkhorn Ranch, did 
not feel under the same compulsion as " the boss " 
to risk his neck in the subjugation of the frantic 
animals. Will Dow had become an excellent horse- 
man, but Sewall had come to the conclusion that 
you could not teach an old dog new tricks, and re- 
fused to be bulldozed into attempting what he 
knew he could not accomplish. There was some- 
thing impressive in the firmness with which he 
refused to allow the cowboys to make him look 
foolish. 

The night the horses arrived, Sewall overheard a 
number of the cowboys remark that they would 



226 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

get the men from Maine " on those wild horses 
and have some fun with them." " I was fore- 
warned," said Bewail, years after, telling about it, 
" and so I was forearmed." 

One of the men came up to Sewall, and with 
malice aforethought led the subject to Sewall's 
participation in the breaking of the horses. 

" I am not going to ride any of those horses," 
said Sewall. 

" You will have to," said the cowboy. 

*' I don't know so much about that." 

'If you don't," remarked the cowboy, "you 
will have the contempt of everybody." 

" That won't affect me very much," Sewall 
answered quietly. " If I were younger, it might, 
but it won't now." 

" Oh, well," said the other lightly, " you will 
have to ride them." 

" No," remarked Sewall, " I didn't come out here 
to make a fool of myself trying to do what I know 
I can't do. I don't want to be pounded on the 
frozen ground." 

The cowboy made a sharp reply, but Sewall, 
feeling his blood rise to his head, became only more 
firm in refusing to be bulldozed. 

" I suppose you fellows can ride broncos," he 
said, " but you cannot ride me, and if you get on, 
your feet will drag." 

There the conversation ended. The next morning 
Sewall heard the cowboy remark, not too pleas- 
antly, " I suppose it is no use to saddle any bad 



A TENDERFOOT HOLDS HIS OWN 227 

ones for Sewall, for he said he wouldn't ride them." 
Sewall paid no attention to the thrust. The 
whole affair had a comic conclusion, for it happened 
that, quite by accident, Sewall, in attempting to 
pick out a gentle horse, picked one who ultimately- 
proved to be one of the worst in the herd. For 
all the time that Sewall was on his back, he acted 
like a model of the virtues. It was only when Dow 
subsequently mounted him that he began to reveal 
his true character, bucking Dow within an inch of 
his life. The cowboy, however, made no more ef- 
forts at intimidation. 

I To Roosevelt — to whom difficulty and peril 
were always a challenge, and pain itself was a vis- 
itant to be wrestled with and never released un- 
til a blessing had been wrung from the mysterious 
lips — the hardships and exertions of those wintry 
day were a source of boyish delight. It partook 
of the nature of adventure to rise at five (three 
hours ahead of the sun) and ride under the starlight 
to bring in the saddle-band; and it gave a sense of 
quiet satisfaction to manly pride later to crowd 
around the fire where the cowboys were stamping 
and beating their numbed hands together and know 
that you had borne yourself as well as they. After 
a day of bronco-busting in the corral, or of riding 
hour after hour, head on into the driven snow-dust, 
there was a sense of real achievement when night 
fell, and a consciousness of strength. The cabin 
was sm.all, but it was storm-proof and homelike, 
and the men with whom Roosevelt shared it were 



228 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

brave and true and full of humor and good yarns. 
They played checkers and chess and " casino " and 
" Old Sledge " through the long evenings, and read 
everything in type that came under their hands. 
Roosevelt was not the only one, it seemed, who 
enjoyed solid literature. 

Did I tell you about my cowboys reading and in 
large part comprehending, your " Studies in Litera- 
ture " } [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge]. My foreman 
handed the book back to me to-day, after reading the 
" Puritan Pepys," remarking meditatively, and with, 
certainly, very great justice, that early Puritanism 
" must have been darned rough on the kids." He 
evidently sympathized keenly with the feelings of the 
poor little " examples of original sin." 

Roosevelt spent all his time at the Maltese Cross 
and went to Medora only for his mail. The quiet 
of winter had descended upon the wild little town. 
The abattoir was closed for the season, the butchers 
(who did their part in enlivening the neighborhood) 
had gone East, the squad of carpenters was silent. 
There was nothing for anybody to do except to 
drink, which the citizens of Medora did to the 
satisfaction of even the saloon-keepers. 

Roosevelt had planned all the autumn to go on 
a hunting trip with Merrifield after mountain sheep, 
but his departure had been delayed by Sylvane's 
return with the horses, and the need for all hands 
in the "outfit" in the arduous undertaking of pre- 
paring their free spirits for the obligations of civili- 
zation. It was well toward the middle of December 



WILD COUNTRY 229 

before they were able to make a start. Roosevelt 
sent George Myers ahead with the buckboard and 
himself followed on horseback with Merrifield. It 
was a savage piece of country through which 
their course took them. 

There were tracts of varying size [Roosevelt wrote 
later describing that trip], each covered with a tangled 
mass of chains and peaks, the buttes in places reaching 
a height that would in the East entitle them to be called 
mountains. Every such tract was riven in all directions 
by deep chasms and narrow ravines, whose sides some- 
times rolled off in gentle slopes, but far more often rose 
as sheer cliffs, with narrow ledges along their fronts. 
A sparse growth of grass covered certain portions of 
these lands, and on some of the steep hillsides, or in 
the canyons, were scanty groves of coniferous evergreens, 
so stunted by the thin soil and bleak weather that many 
of them were bushes rather than trees. Most of the 
peaks and ridges, and many of the valleys, were entirely 
bare of vegetation, and these had been cut by wind and 
water into the strangest and most fantastic shapes. 
Indeed, it is difficult, in looking at such formations, to 
get rid of the feeling that their curiously twisted and 
contorted forms are due to some vast volcanic upheavals 
or other subterranean forces; yet they are merely 
caused by the action of the various weathering forces 
of the dry climate on the different strata of sandstones, 
clays, and marls. Isolated columns shoot up into the 
air, bearing on their summits flat rocks like tables; 
square buttes tower high above surrounding depressions, 
which are so cut up by twisting gullies and low ridges 
as to be almost impassable; shelving masses of sandstone 
jut out over the sides of the cliffs; some of the ridges, 
with perfectly perpendicular sides, are so worn away 
that they stand up like gigantic knife-blades; and 



230 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

gulches, wash-outs, and canyons dig out the sides of 
each butte, while between them are thrust out long 
spurs, with sharp, ragged tops. 

They hunted through the broken country on 
foot. Up the slippery, ice-covered buttes they 
climbed, working their way across the faces of the 
cliffs or cautiously groping along narrow ledges, 
peering long and carefully over every crest. But 
they found no sheep. The cold was intense and they 
were glad when, at sunset, they reached the cabin, 
which was to be their headquarters. George Myers 
had already arrived. 

It was a bitter night, and through the chinks of 
the crazy old hut it invaded their shelter, defying 
any fire which they could build. 

By the time the first streak of dawn had dimmed 
the brilliancy of the stars, the hunters were under 
way. Their horses had proved a bother the day 
before, and they were afoot, striding briskly through 
the bitter cold to where the great bulk of Middle 
Butte loomed against the sunrise. They hunted 
carefully through the outlying foothills and toiled 
laboriously up the steep sides to the level top. It 
was a difficult piece of mountaineering, for the edges 
of the cliffs had become round and slippery with 
the ice, and it was no easy task to move up and 
along them, clutching the gun in one hand and 
grasping each little projection with the other. 
That day again they found no sheep. 

Hour by hour the cold grew more intense. All 
signs indicated a blizzard. 



MOUNTAIN SHEEP 231 

The air was thick and hazy as Roosevelt and 
Merrifield early next morning reached the distant 
hills v/here they intended that day to make their 
hunt. Off in the northwest a towering mass of 
grayish-white clouds hung, threatening trouble. 
The region was, if anything, even wilder and more 
difficult than the country they had hunted through 
on the two previous days. The ice made the footing 
perilous, and in the cold thin air every quick burst 
they made up a steep hill caused them to pant for 
breath. But they were not unrewarded. Crawling 
cautiously over a sharp ledge they came suddenly 
upon two mountain rams not a hundred yards away. 
Roosevelt dropped on his knee, raising his rifle. At 
the report, the largest of the rams staggered and 
pitched forw^ard, but recovered himself and dis- 
appeared over another ridge. The hunters jumped 
and slid down into a ravine, clambering up the 
opposite side as fast as their lungs and the slippery 
ice would let them. They had not far to go. Two 
hundred yards beyond the ridge they found their 
quarry, dead. They took the head for a trophy. 

It Was still early in the day, and Roosevelt and 
Merrifield made up their minds to push for home. 
The lowering sky was already overcast by a mass 
of ieaden-gray clouds; they had no time to lose. 
They hurried back to the cabin, packed up their 
bedding and provisions, and started northward. 
Roosevelt rode ahead with Merrifield, not sparing 
the horses; but before they had reached the ranch- 
house the storm had burst, and a furious blizzard 



232 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

was blowing in their teeth as they galloped along 
the last mile of the river bottom. 

George Myers celebrated the successful conclu- 
sion of the hunt in his own fashion. In one of his 
unaccountable culinary lapses, he baked the beans 
that night in rosin. With the first mouthful Roose- 
velt dropped his knife and fork and made for the 
door. 

" George," he remarked as he returned to the 
table with his eye fixed on the offender, " I can eat 
green biscuits and most of your other infernal 
concoctions, but I am hanged if I can eat rosined 
beans." 

He did not eat them, but he did not let the 
memory of them die either, to George's deep 
chagrin. 

I have just returned from a three days' trip in the 
Bad Lands after mountain sheep [Roosevelt wrote to 
" Bamie " on December 14th], and after tramping over 
the most awful country that can be imagined, I finally 
shot one ram with a fine head. I have now killed every 
kind of plains game. 

I have to stay here till after next Friday to attend a 
meeting of the Little Missouri Stockmen; on Saturday, 
December 20th, I start home and shall be in New York 
the evening of December 23d. I have just had fifty- two 
horses brought in by Ferris, and Sewall and Dow started 
down the river with their share yesterday. The latter 
have lost two horses; I am afraid they have been stolen. 

The meeting of the stockmen was held in Medora 
on the day appointed, ^and it is notable that it was 
Roosevelt who called it to order and who directed 



THE STOCKMEN'S ASSOCIATION 233 

its deliberations. He was one of the youngest of 
the dozen stockmen present, and in the ways of 
cattle no doubt one of the least experienced. Most 
of the men he greeted that day had probably been 
discussing the problems he was undertaking to 
solve long before he himself had ever heard of the 
Bad Lands. It was Roosevelt's distinction that 
having observed the problems he determined to 
solve them, and having made this determination he 
sought a solution in the principles and methods of 
democratic government. The stockmen had con- 
fidence in him. He was direct, he was fearless; he 
was a good talker, sure of his ground, and, in the 
language of the Bad Lands, " he didn't take back- 
water from any one." He was self-reliant and he 
minded his own business; he was honest and he had 
no axe to grind. The ranchmen no doubt felt that 
in view of these qualities you might forget a man's 
youth and forgive his spectacles. They evidently 
did both, for, after adopting a resolution that it 
was the sense of the meeting " that an Association 
of the Stockmen along the Little Missouri and its 
tributaries be forthwith formed," they promptly 
elected Theodore Roosevelt chairman of it. 

Lurid tales have been told of what went on at 
that meeting. There is a dramatic story of Joe 
Morrill's sudden appearance, backed by a score of 
ruffians; of defiance and counter-defiance; of re- 
volvers and " blood on the moonlight "; and of a 
corrupt deputy marshal cowering with ashen face 
before the awful denunciations of a bespectacled 



234 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" tenderfoot "; but unhaipily, the authenticity of 
the story is dubious. The meeting, so far as the 
cold eye of the historian can discern, was dramatic 
only in its implications and no more exciting than a 
sewing-circle. The Marquis de Mores was present; 
so also was Gregor Lang, his most merciless critic; 
but whatever drama was inherent in that situa- 
tion remained beneath the surface. By-laws were 
adopted,'' the Marquis was appointed " as a Com- 
mittee of One to work with the committee appointed 
by the Eastern Montana Live Stock Association 
in the endeavor td procure legislation from the 
Territorial Legislature of Dakota favorable to the 
interests of the cattlemen "; and the meeting was 
over. It was all most amiable and commonplace. 
There was no oratory and no defiance of anybody. 
What had been accomplished, however, was that, 
in the absence of organized government, the con- 
servative elements in the county had formed an 
offensive and defensive league for mutual protec- 
tion, as the by-laws ran, " against frauds and 
swindlers, and to prevent the stealing, taking, and 
driving away of homed cattle, sheep, horses, and 
other stock from the rightful owners thereof." 

It meant the beginning of the end of lawlessness 
in the Bad Lands. 



XIV 

I 'II never come North again. 

My home is the sunny South, 
Where it's never mo' than forty below 

An' the beans don't freeze in your mouth; 
An' the snow ain't like white smoke, 

An' the ground ain't like white iron; 
An' the wind don't stray from Baffin's Bay 

To join you on retirin'. 

From Medora Nights 

Roosevelt arrived in New York a day or two before 
Christmas with the trophies of his hunt about him 
and his hunting costume in his " grip." He settled 
down at his sister's house, at 422 Madison Avenue, 
where his Httle girl Alice was living, and, with his 
characteristic energy in utilizing every experience to 
the full, promptly began work on a series of hunt- 
ing sketches which sl^ould combine the thrill of ad- 
venture with the precise observation of scientific 
natural history. It is worth noting that, in order 
to provide a frontispiece for his work, he solemnly 
dressed himself up in the buckskin shirt and the 
rest of the elaborate costume he had described with 
such obvious delight to his sister; and had himself 
photographed. There is something hilariously funny 
in the visible records of that performance. The 
imitation grass, not quite concealing the rug be- 
neath, the painted background, the theatrical 
(slightly patched) rocks against which the cowboy 
leans gazing dreamily across an imaginary prairie, 
the pose of the hunter with rifle ready and finger 



236 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

on the trigger, grimly facing dangerous game which 
is not there — all reveal a boyish delight in play- 
acting. For once his sense of humior was in abey- 
ance, but posterity is the richer for this glimpse 
of the solemn boy in the heart of a powerful man. 
Winter closed over the Bad Lands, bringing 
Arctic hardships. Even Bill Sewall, who had been 
born and bred in the Maine woods, declared that 
he had never know^n such cold. There was a theory, 
fostered by the real estate agents, that you did not 
feel the cold which the thermometer registered; 
and the Marquis, who never missed an opportun- 
ity to " boom " his new town in the newspapers, 
insisted stoutly not only that he habitually " walked 
and rode about comfortably without an overcoat "; 
but also that he " felt the cold much more severely 
in New York, and in Washington even." Other 
landowners maintained the same delusion, and it 
was considered almost treason to speak of the 
tragedies of the cold. The fact remained, however, 
that a snowfall, which elsewhere might scarcely 
make good sleighing, in the Bad Lands became a 
foe to human life of inconceivable fury. For with 
it generally came a wind so fierce that the stoutest 
wayfarer could make no progress against it. The 
small, dry flakes, driven vertically before it, cut 
the flesh like a razor, blinding the vision and sti- 
fling the breath and shutting out the world with 
an impenetrable icy curtain. A half-hour after the 
storm had broken, the traveler, lost in it, might 
wonder whether there were one foot of snow or 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
(1884) 



WINTER MISERY 237 

five, and whether the greater part of it were on the 
ground or whirling about him in the air. With the 
snow came extreme cold that pierced the thickest 
garments. 

The horses, running free on the range, seemed to 
feel the cold comparatively little, eating the snow 
for water, and pawing through it to the stem- 
cured prairie-grass for food. But the cattle suffered 
intensely, especially the Southern stock which had 
not yet learnt that they must eat their way through 
the snow to the sustenance beneath. They stood 
huddled together at every wind-break, and in the 
first biting storm of the new year even sought the 
shelter of the towns, taking possession of the streets. 
The cows, curiously enough, seemed to bear the 
hardship better than the bulls. The male, left to 
his own resources, had a tendency to " give up " 
and creep into the brush and die, while the females, 
reduced to skin and bones, struggled on, gnawing 
at the frozen stumps of sagebrush, battling to the 
last. 

Western newspapers, " booming " the cattle busi- 
ness, insisted that every blizzard was followed by 
a warm wind known as a " chinook " which brought 
a prompt return of comiort and sleekness to the 
most unhappy steer; but wise men knew better. 
For the cattle, seeking a livelihood on the snowy, 
wind-swept wastes, the winter was one long-pro- 
tracted misery. 

It was in fact not an unalloyed delight for human 
beings, especially for those whose business it was to 



238 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

guard the cattle. The hardest and the bitterest 
work was what was called " line riding." The 
ranchmen cared little if their cattle grazed westward 
toward the Yellowstone; it was a different matter, 
however, if they drifted east and southeast to the 
granger country and the Sioux Reservation, where 
there were flat, bare plains which offered neither 
food nor shelter, and where thieves were many 
and difficult to apprehend. Along the line where 
the broken ground of the Bad Lands met the prairie 
east of the Little Missouri, the ranchm.en, therefore, 
established a series of camps, from each of which two 
cowboys, starting in opposite directions, patrolled 
the invisible line halfway to the adjoining camps. 

Bill Sewall gazed out over the bleak country with 
a homesick and apprehensive heart. 

As for our coming back [he wrote his brother in Jan- 
uary], you need not worry about that. As soon as I serve 
out my time and my sentence expires I shall return. 
Am having a good time and enjoy myself, should any- 
where if I knew I could not do any better and was 
obliged to, but this is just about like being transported to 
Siberia, just about as cold, barren and desolate and most 
as far out of the way. It was hotter here last summer 
than it ever was at home and it has been colder here 
this winter than it ever was at home, 50 and 65 below all 
one week. Don't see how the cattle live at all and there 
is lots of them dicing. You can find them all around 
where they lay nights in the bushes. The poor ones will 
all go, I guess. They say they will die worse in the spring. 
The fat strong ones will get through, I guess. Don't 
know that any of our hundred have died yet, but I don't 
believe this is a good country to raise cattle in. 



RETURN TO MEDORA 239 

Am afraid Theodore will not make so much as he has 
been led to think he would. There are lots of bleeders 
here, but we mean to fend them off from him as well as 
we can. 

Roosevelt spent the coldest months in New York, 
working steadily on his new book which was to be 
called " Hunting Trips of a Ranchman." On the 
8th of March he wrote Lodge, " I have just sent 
my last roll of manuscript to the printers " ; adding, 
" in a fortnight I shall go out West." But he 
postponed his departure, held possibly by the lure 
of the hunting-field; for on the 29th he rode with 
the Meadowbrook hounds and was "in at the 
death." It was presumably in the first days of 
April that he arrived at Medora. If tradition may 
be trusted, he came in all the glory of what were 
known as " store clothes." The Pittsburgh Des- 
patch, which sent out a reporter to the train to 
interview him as he passed through that city, west- 
ward-bound, refers to " the high expanse of white 
linen which enclosed his neck to the ears," which 
sounds like a slight exaggeration. Tradition does 
insist, however, that he wore a derby hat when he 
arrived, which was considered highly venturesome. 
Derby hats as a rule were knocked off on sight 
and then bombarded with six-shooters beyond 
recognition. Roosevelt informed his fellow citizens 
early in his career as a cowpuncher that he intended 
to wear any hat he pleased. Evidently it was 
deemed expedient to suspend the rule in his case, 
for he was not molested. 



240 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

After a brief sojourn at the Maltese Cross, 
Roosevelt made his way north to Elkhorn Ranch. 
The house was nearing completion. It was a one- 
story log structure, with a covered porch on the side 
facing the river; a spacious house of many rooms 
divided by a corridor running straight through 
from north to south. Roosevelt's bedroom, on the 
southeast corner, adjoined a large room containing 
a fireplace, which was to be Roosevelt's study by 
day and the general living-room by night. The 
fireplace, which had been built by an itinerant 
Swedish mason whom Sewall looked upon with 
disapproval as a dollar-chaser, had been designed 
under the influence of a Dakota winter and was 
enormous. Will Dow, who was somewhat of a 
blacksmith, had made a pair of andirons out of a 
steel rail, which he had discovered floating down 
the river loosely attached to a beam of yellow pine.^ 

The cattle, Roosevelt found, were looking well. 
" Bill," he said to Sewall, remembering the back- 
woodsman's pessimism, " you were mistaken about 
those cows. Cows and calves are all looking fine." 

But Sewall w^as not to be convinced. " You 
wait until next spring," he answered, " and see 
how they look." 

Roosevelt was himself physically in rather bad 
shape, sufTerIng from that affliction which has, by 
common consent, been deemed of all of Job's 
troubles the one hardest to bear with equanimity. 

' The andirons are still doing service at the ranch of Howard 
Eaton and his brothers in Wolf, Wyoming. 



ILLNESS AND RECOVERY 241 

Douglas Robinson wrote Sewall telling him that 
Theodore's sisters were worried about him and 
asking him for news of Roosevelt's health. Roose- 
velt heard of the request and was indignant, " flaring 
up," as Sewall described it. 

" They had no business to write to you," he 
exclaimed. " They should have written to me." 

" I guess," remarked Sewall quietly, " they 
knew you wouldn't write about how you were 
getting on. You'd just say you were all right." 

Roosevelt fumed and said no more about it. 
But the crisp air of the Bad Lands gradually put 
all questions of his health out of mind. All day 
long he lived in the open. He was not an enthusiast 
over the hammer or the axe, and, while Sewall and 
Dow were completing the house and building the 
corrals and the stables a hundred yards or more 
westward, he renewed his acquaintance with the 
bizarre but fascinating country. The horses which 
the men from Maine had missed the previous 
autumn, and which Roosevelt had feared had been 
stolen, had been reported " running wild " forty or 
fifty miles to the west. Sewall and Dow had made 
one or two trips after them without success, for 
the animals had come to enjoy their liberty and 
proved elusive. Roosevelt determined to find them 
and bring them back. He went on three solitary 
expeditions, but they proved barren of result. 
Incidentally, however, they furnished h.im experi- 
ences which were worth many horses. 

On one of these expeditions night overtook him 



242 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

not far from Mingusville. That hot little commu- 
nity, under the inspiration of a Frenchman named 
Pierre Wibaux, was rapidly becoming an important 
cattle center. As a shipping point it had, by the 
close of 1884, already attained notable proportions 
on the freight records of the Northern Pacific. 
Medora, in all its glory, could not compete with 
it, for the cattle trails through the Bad Lands were 
difficult, and space was lacking on the small bottoms 
near the railroad to hold herds of any size prepara- 
tory to shipping. About Mingusville all creation 
stretched undulating to the hazy horizon. The great 
southern cattle companies which had recently es- 
tablished themselves on the northern range, Simp- 
son's " Hash-Knife " brand, Towers and Gudgell's 
O. X. Ranch, and the Berr^^ Boyce Company's 
" Three-Seven outfit," all drove their cattle along 
the Beaver to Mingusville, and even Merrifield 
and Sylvane preferred shipping their stock from 
there to driving it to the more accessible, but also 
more congested, yards at Medora. 

Civilization had not kept pace with commerce 
in the development of the prairie " town." It was 
a lurid little place. Medora, in comparison to it, 
might have appeared almost sober and New- 
Englandish. It had no " steady " residents save a 
half-dozen railroad employees, the landlord of the 
terrible hotel south of the tracks, where Roosevelt 
had had his encounter with the drunken bully, and 
a certain Mrs. Nolan and her daughters, who kept 
an eminently respectable boarding-house on the 



%: 



MINGUSVILLE 243 

opposite side of the railroad; but its "floating 
population " was large. Every herd driven into the 
shipping-yards from one of the great ranches in the 
upper Little Missouri country brought with it a 
dozen or more parched cowboys hungering and 
thirsting for excitement as no saint ever hungered 
and thirsted for righteousness; and celebrations had 
a way of lasting for days. The men were Texans, 
most of them, extraordinary riders, born to the 
saddle, but reckless, given to heavy drinking, and 
utterly wild and irresponsible when drunk. It was 
their particular delight to make life hideous for the 
station agent and the telegraph operator. For 
some weeks Mingusville, it was said, had a new 
telegraph operator every night. About ten o'clock 
the cowbo3S, celebrating at the " hotel," would 
drift over to the board shack which was the railroad 
station, and " shoot it full of holes.'' They had no 
particular reason for doing this; they had no grudge 
against either the railroad or the particular operator 
who happened to be in charge. They were children, 
and it was fun to hear the bullets pop, and excruci- 
ating fun to see the operator run out of the shack 
with a yell and go scampering off into the darkness. 
One operator entered into negotiations with the 
enemy. Recognizing their perfect right to shoot up 
the station if they wanted to, he merely stipulated 
that they allow him to send off the night's dispatches 
before they began. This request seemed to the 
cowboys altogether reasonable. They waited until 
the operator said that his work was done. Then, as 



244 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

he faded away in the darkness, the night's bombard- 
ment began. 

Into this tempestuous little " town," Roosevelt 
rode one day as night was falling. No doubt be- 
cause Mrs. Nolan's beds were filled, he was forced 
to take a room at the nefarious hotel where he had 
chastised the bully a year previous. Possibly to 
prevent the recurrence of that experience, he retired 
early to the small room with one bed which had 
been assigned him and sat until late reading the 
book he had brought along in his saddle-pocket. 

The house was quiet and every one was asleep, 
when a cowboy arrived from God knows whence, 
yelling and shooting as he came galloping through 
the darkness. He was evidently very drunk. He 
thumped loudly on the door, and after some delay 
the host opened it. The stranger showed no ap- 
preciation; on the contrary-, he seized the hotel- 
keeper, half in play, it seemed, and half in enmity, 
jammed the mouth of his six-shooter against his 
stomach and began to dance about the room with 
him. 

In the room above, Roosevelt heard the host's 
agonized appeals. "Jim, don't! Don't, Jim! It'll 
gooff! Jim, it'll go off!" 

Jim's response was not reassuring. " Yes, damn 
you, it'll go off! I'll learn you! Who in hell cares if 
it does go off! Oh, I'll learn you! " 

But the gun, after all, did not go off. The cowboy 
subsided, then burst into vociferous demands for a 
bed. A minute later Roosevelt heard steps in the 



HE'S DRUNK AND ON THE SHOOT 245 

hall, followed by a knock at his door. Roosevelt 
opened it. 

" I'm sorry," said the host, " but there's a man 
I'll have to put in with you for the night." 

" You're not as sorry as I am," Roosevelt an- 
swered coolly, " and I'm not going to have him 
come in here." 

The host was full of apologies. " He's drunk and 
he's on the shoot," he said unhappily, " and he's 
got to come in." 

This appeal was not of a character to weaken 
Roosevelt's resolution. " I'm going to lock my 
door," he remarked firmly, " and put out my light. 
And I'll shoot anybody who tries to break in." 

The host departed. Roosevelt never knew where 
the unwelcome guest was lodged that night; but 
he himself was left undisturbed. 

On another occasion that spring, when Roosevelt 
was out on the prairie hunting the lost horses, he 
was overtaken by darkness. Mingusville was the 
only place within thirty miles or more that offered 
a chance of a night's lodging, and he again rode 
there, knocking at the door of Mrs. Nolan's board- 
ing-house late in the evening. Mrs. Nolan, who 
greeted him, was a tough, wiry Irishwoman of the 
type of Mrs. Maddox, with a fighting jaw and a 
look in her eye that had been known to be as potent 
as a " six-shooter " in clearing a room of undesirable 
occupants. She disciplined her husband (who evi- 
dently needed it) and brought up her daughters 
with a calm good sense that won them and her 



246 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the respect of the roughest of the cowpunchers 
who came under her roof. 

Roosevelt, having stabled his horse in an empty 
out-building, asked for a bed. Mrs. Nolan answered 
that he could have the last one that was left, since 
there was only one other man in it. 

He accepted the dubious privilege and was shown 
to a room containing two double beds. One con- 
tained two men fast asleep, the other only one man, 
also asleep. He recognized his bedfellow. It was 
" Three-Seven " Bill Jones, an excellent cowman 
belonging to the " Three-Seven outfit " who had 
recently acquired fame by playfully* holding up the 
Overland Express in order to make the conductor 
dance. He put his trousers, boots, shaps, and gun 
down beside the bed, and turned in. 

He was awakened an hour or two later by a crash 
as the door was rudely flung open. A lantern was 
flashed in his face, and, as he came to full con- 
sciousness, he found himself, in the light of a dingy 
lantern, staring into the mouth of a " six-shooter." 

Another man said to the lantern-bearer, " It 
ain't him." The next moment his bedfellow was 
" covered " with two " guns." " Now, Bill," said a 
gruff voice, " don't make a fuss, but come along 
quiet." 

" All right, don't sweat yourself," responded 
Bill. "I'm not thinking of making a fuss." 

** That's right," was the answer, " we're your 
friends. We don't want to hurt you; we just want 
you to come along. You know why." 



THE SEIZURE OF BILL 247 

Bill pulled on his trousers and boots and walked 
out with them. 

All the while there had been no sound from the 
other bed. Now a match was scratched and a 
candle was lit, and one of the men looked round the 
room. 

" I wonder why they took Bill," Roosevelt 
remarked. 

There was no answer, and Roosevelt, not knowing 
that there was what he later termed an " alkali 
etiquette in such matters," repeated the question. 
" I wonder why they took Bill." 

" Well," said the man with the candle, dryly, 
" I reckon they wanted him," and blew out the 
candle. That night there was no more conversation ; 
but Roosevelt's education had again been extended. 



XV 

When did we long for the sheltered gloom 
Of the older game with its cautious odds? 

Gloried we always in sun and room, 

Spending our strength like the younger gods. 

By the wild, sweet ardor that ran in us, 

By the pain that tested the man in us. 

By the shadowy springs and the glaring sand, 
You were our true-love, young, young land. 

Badger Clark 

Spring came to the Bad Lands in fits and numerous 
false starts, first the "chinook," uncovering the 
butte-tops between dawn and dusk, then the rush- 
ing of many waters, the flooding of low bottom- 
lands, the agony of a world of gumbo, and, after 
a dozen boreal setbacks, the awakening of green 
things and the return of a temperature fit for 
human beings to live in. Snow buntings came in 
March, flocking familiarly round the cow-shed at 
the Maltese Cross, now chittering on the ridge-pole, 
now hovering in the air with qui^'ering wings, 
warbling their loud, merr^' song. Before the snow 
was off the ground, the grouse cocks could be heard 
uttering their hollow booming. At the break of 
morning, their deep, resonant calls came from far 
and near through the clear air like the vibrant 
sound of some wind instrument. Now and again, 
at dawn or in the early evening, Roosevelt would 
stop and listen for many minutes to the weird, 
strange music, or steal upon the cocks where they 
were gathered holding their dancing rings, and 



THE SPRING OF 1885 249 

watch them posturing and strutting about as they 
paced through their minuet. 

The opening of the ground — and it was occasion- 
ally not unlike the opening of a trap-door — brought 
work in plenty to Roosevelt and his friends at the 
Maltese Cross. The glades about the water-holes 
where the cattle congregated became bogs that 
seemed to have no bottom. Cattle sank in them 
and perished unless a saving rope was thrown in 
time about their horns and a gasping pony pulled 
them clear. The ponies themselves became mired 
and had to be rescued. It was a period of wallowing 
for ever\-thing on four feet or on two. The mud 
stuck like plaster.^ 

Travel of e\-ery sort was hazardous during early 
spring, for no one ever knew when the ground would 
open and engulf him. Ten thousand wash-outs, a 
dozen feet deep or thirty, ran " bank-high " with 
swirling, merciless waters, and the Little Missouri, 
which was a shallow trickle in August, was a torrent 
in April. There were no bridges. If you wanted to 
get to the other side, you swam your horse across, 
hoping for the best. 

At Medora it was customary, when the Little 

Missouri was high, to ride to the western side on 

the narrow footpath between the tracks on the 

trestle; and after the Marquis built a dam nearby 

for the purpose of securing ice of the necessary 

^ " I never was bothered by gumbo in the Bad Lands. There wasn't 
a sufficient proportion of clay in the soil. But out on the prairie, 
oh, my martyred Aunt Jane's black and white striped cat!" — A. T. 
Packard. 



250 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

thickness for use in his refrigerating plant, a venture- 
some spirit now and then guided his horse across 
its slippery surface. It happened one day early in 
April that Fisher was at the river's edge, with a 
number of men, collecting certain tools and lumber 
which had been used in the cutting and hauling of 
the ice, when Roosevelt, riding Manitou, drew up, 
with the evident intention of making his way over 
the river on the dam. The dam, however, had 
disappeared. The ice had broken up, far up the 
river, and large cakes were floating past, accumu- 
lating at the bend below the town and raising the 
water level well above the top of the Marquis's 
dam. The river was what ']oe Ferris had a way of 
calling " swimmin' deep for a giraffe." 

" Where does the dam start? " asked Roosevelt. 

" You surely won't try to cross on the dam," 
exclaimed Fisher, " when you can go and cross on 
the trestle the way the others do? " 

" If Manitou gets his feet on that dam," Roose- 
velt replied, " he'll keep them there and we can 
make it finely." 

" Well, it's more than likely," said Fisher, " that 
there's not much of the dam left." 

" It doesn't matter, anyway. Manitou's a good 
swimmer and we're going across." 

Fisher, with grave misgivings, indicated where 
the dam began. Roosevelt turned his horse into 
the river; Manitou did not hesitate. 

Fisher shouted, hoping to attract the attention 
of some cowboy on the farther bank who might 



SWIMMING THE LITTLE MISSOURI 251 

stand ready with a rope to rescue the venturesome 
rider. There was no response. 

On the steps of the store, however, which he had 
inherited from the unstable Johnny Nelson, Joe 
Ferris was watching the amazing performance. He 
saw a rider coming from the direction of the Maltese 
Cross, and it seemed to him that the rider looked 
like Roosevelt. Anxiously he watched him pick his 
way out on the submerged dam. 

Manitou, meanwhile, was living up to his reputa- 
tion. Fearlessly, yet with infinite caution, he kept 
his course along the unseen path. Suddenly the 
watchers on the east bank and the west saw horse 
and rider disappear, swallowed up by the brown" 
waters. An instant later they came in sight again. 
Roosevelt flung himself from his horse " on the 
down-stream side," and with one hand on the horn 
of the saddle fended off the larger blocks of ice from 
before his faithful horse. 

Fisher said to himself that if Manitou drifted 
even a little with the stream, Roosevelt would never 
get ashore. The next landing was a mile down the 
river, and that might be blocked by the ice. 

The horse struck bottom at the extreme lower edge 
of the ford and struggled up the bank. Roosevelt 
had not even lost his glasses. He laughed and waved 
his hand to Fisher, mounted and rode to Joe's 
store. Having just risked his life in the wildest 
sort of adventure, it was entirely characteristic of 
him that he should exercise the caution of putting 
on a pair of dry socks. 



252 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Joe received him with mingled devotion and 
amazement. "Landsake, man! " he cried, ''were n't 
you afraid? " 

" I was riding Manitou," Roosevelt responded 
quietly. " Just," exclaimed Joe later, " as though 
Manitou was a steam engine." He bought a new 
pair of socks, put them on, and proceeded on his 
journey. 

Fisher saw him shortly after and accused him of 
being reckless. 

" I suppose it might be considered reckless," 
Roosevelt admitted. " But it was lots of fun " 

Roosevelt spent his time alternately at the two 
ranches, writing somewhat and correcting the proofs 
of his new book, but spending most of his time in 
the saddle. The headquarters of his cattle business 
was at the Maltese Cross where Sylvane Ferris and 
Merrilield were in command. Elkhorn was, for 
the time being, merely a refuge and a hunting- 
lodge where Sewall and Dow " ran " a few hundred 
cattle under the general direction of the more ex- 
perienced men of the other " outfit." 

At the Maltese Cross there were now a half- 
dozen hands, Sylvane and " our friend with the 
beaver-slide," as Merrifield, who was bald, was 
known; George Myers, warm-hearted and honest as 
the day; Jack Reuter, known as " Wannigan," 
with his stupendous memory and his Teutonic 
appetite; and at intervals "old man" Thompson 
who was a teamster, and a huge being named Hank 



RANCHING COMPANIONS 253 

Bennett. Roosevelt liked them all immensely. 
They possessed to an extraordinary degree the 
qualities of manhood which he deemed fundamental, 
— courage, integrity, hardiness, self-reliance, — 
combining with those qualities a warmth, a humor, 
and a humanness that opened his understanding to 
many things. He had come in contact before with 
men whose opportunities in life had been less than 
his, and who in the eyes of the world belonged to 
that great mass of " common people " of whom 
Lincoln said that " the Lord surely loved them 
since he made so many of them." But he had never 
lived with them, day in, day out, slept with them, 
eaten out of the same dish with them. The men of 
the cattle country, he found, as daily companions, 
wore well. 

They called him "Mr. Roosevelt," not "Theo- 
dore" nor "Teddy." For, though he was comrade 
and friend to all, he was also the "boss," and they 
showed him the respect his position and his in- 
stinctive leadership merited. More than once a man 
who attempted to be unduly familiar with Roose- 
velt found himself swiftly and effectively squelched. 
He himself entered with enthusiasm into the work 
of administration. He regarded the ranch as a most 
promising business venture, and felt assured that, 
with ordinary luck, he should make his livelihood 
from it. On every side he received support for this 
assurance. The oldest cattleman as well as the 
youngest joined in the chorus that there never had 
been such a country for turning cattle into dollars. 



254 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

In the Territorial Governor's Report for 1885, 
Packard is quoted, waxing lyric about it: 

Bunch and buffalo-grass cover almost every inch of 
the ground. The raw sides of buttes are the only places 
where splendid grazing cannot be found. On many of 
the buttes, however, the grass grows clear to the summit, 
the slopes being the favorite pasture-lands of the cattle. 
Generally no hay need be cut, as the grass cures standing, 
and keeps the cattle in as good condition all winter 
as if they were stall-fed. The only reason for putting 
up hay is to avoid a scarcity of feed in case of heavy 
snow. This very seldom happens, however, as very 
little snow falls in the Bad Lands. A curious fact with 
cattle is that the ones that have been here a year or two, 
and know how to rustle, will turn away from a stack of 
hay, paw away the snow from the grass, and feed on 
that exclusively. Even in the dead of winter a meadow 
has a very perceptible tinge of green. 

A realist might have remarked that very little 
snow fell in the Bad Lands mainly because the 
wind would not let it. The Cowboy editor's exultant 
optimism has an aspect of terrible irony in the light 
of the tragedy that was even then building itself 
out of the over-confidence of a hundred enthusiasts. 

Bill Bewail and Will Dow alone remained skeptical. 

Perhaps we are wrong [Sewall wrote his brother], 
but we think it is too cold and barren for a good cattle 
country. Nobody has made anything at it yet. All expect 
to. Guess it's very much like going into the woods in fall. 
All are happy, hut the drive is fiot in yet. When it does 
get in, am afraid there will be a shortness somewhere. 
The men that furnish the money are not many of them 
here themselves and the fellows that run the business 



GOLDEN EXPECTATIONS 255 

and are supposed to know, all look for a very prosper- 
ous future, consider the troubles and discouragements, 
losses, etc., temporary. They are like us — getting good 
and sure pay. 

Roosevelt recognized the possibility of great 
losses; but he would have been less than human if 
in that youthful atmosphere of gorgeous expecta- 
tion he had not seen the possibilities of failure less 
vividly than the possibilities of success. Sylvane and 
Merrifield were confident that they were about to 
make their everlasting fortunes; George Myers in- 
vested every cent of his savings in cattle, ** throw- 
ing them in," as the phrase went, with the herd of 
the Maltese Cross. In their first year the Maltese 
Cross " outfit " had branded well over a hundred 
calves; the losses, in what had been a severe winter, 
had been slight. It was a season of bright hopes. 
Late in April, Roosevelt sent Merrifield to Minnesota 
with Sewall and Dow and a check for twelve thou- 
sand five hundred dollars to purchase as many more 
head of stock as the money would buy. 

Roosevelt, meanwhile, was proving himself as 
capable as a ranchman as he w^as courageous as an 
investor. The men who worked with him noted 
with satisfaction that he learned quickly and worked 
hard; that he was naturally progressive; that he 
cared little for money, and yet was thrifty; that, 
although conferring in all matters affecting the 
stock with Sylvane and Merrifield, and deferring 
to their experience even at times against his own 
judgment, he was very much the leader. He was 



256 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

never " bossy," they noted, but he was insistent 
on disciphne, on regularity of habits, on prompt 
obedience, on absolute integrity. 

He was riding over the range one day with one 
of his ablest cowpunchers, when they came upon a 
" maverick," a two-year-old steer, which had never 
been branded. They lassoed him promptly and 
built a fire to heat the branding-irons. 

It was the rule of the cattlemen that a " mav- 
erick " belonged to the ranchman on whose range 
it was found. This particular steer, therefore, 
belonged, not to Roosevelt, but to Gregor Lang, who 
" claimed " the land over which Roosevelt and his 
cowboy were riding. The Texan started to apply 
the red-hot iron. 

*' It is Lang's brand — a thistle," said Roosevelt. 

"That's all right, boss," answered the cowboy. 
" I know my business." 

" Hold on!" Roosevelt exclaimed an instant later, 
"you are putting on my brand." 

" That's all right. I always put on the boss's 
brand." 

" Drop that iron," said Roosevelt quietly, " and 
go to the ranch and get your time. I don't need 
you any longer." 

The cowpuncher was amazed. " Say, what have 
I done? Didn't I put on your brand?" 

" A man who will steal /or me will steal from me. 
You're fired." 

The man rode away. A day or so later the story 
was all over the Bad Lands. 



THE BOSS OF THE MALTESE CROSS 257 

Roosevelt was scarcely more tolerant of in- 
effectiveness than he was of dishonesty. When a 
man was sent to do a piece of work, he was expected 
to do it promptly and thoroughly. He brooked no 
slack work and he had no ear for what were known 
as " hard-luck stories." He gave his orders, know- 
ing why he gave them; and expected results. If, 
on the other hand, a man " did his turn " without 
complaint or default, Roosevelt showed himself 
eager and prom.pt to reward him. 

His companions saw these things, and other 
things. They saw that " the boss " was quick- 
tempered and impatient of restraint; but they 
saw also that in times of stress the hot-headed boy 
seemed instantly to grow into a cautious and level- 
headed man, dependable in hardship and cool in 
the face of danger. He was, as one of them put it, 
" courageous without recklessness, firm without 
being stubborn, resolute without being obstinate. 
There was no element of the spectacular in his 
make-up, but an honest naturalness that won him 
friends instantly." 

" Roosevelt out in Dakota was full of life and 
spirit, always pleasant," said Bill Sewall in after 
years. " He was hot-tempered and quick, but he 
kept'his temper in good control. As a rule, when he 
had anything to say, he'd spit it out. His temper 
would show itself in the first flash in some exclama- 
tion. In connection with Roosevelt I always think 
of that verse in the Bible, ' He that ruleth his spirit 
is greater than he that taketh a city.' " 



258 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" He struck me like a sort of rough-an'-ready, 
all-around frontiersman," said " Dutch Wannigan." 
" Wasn't a bit stuck up — just the same as one of 
the rest of us." 

Joe Ferris, who frankly adored Roosevelt, de- 
clared to a crowd at his store one day, " I wouldn't 
be surprised if Roosevelt would be President." 

His hearers scoffed at him. " That fool Joe 
Ferris," remarked one of them at his own ranch 
that night, " says that Roosevelt will be President 
some day." 

But Joe held his ground.^ 

The neighbors up and down the river were warm- 
hearted and friendly. Mrs. Roberts had decided 
that she wanted a home of her own, and had per- 
suaded her husband to build her a cabin some 
three miles north of the Maltese Cross, where a 
long green slope met a huge semi-circle of gray 
buttes. The cabin was primitive, being built of 
logs stuck, stockade-fashion, in the ground, and 
the roof was only dirt until Mrs. Roberts planted 
sunflowers there and made it a garden; but for 
Mrs. Roberts, w^ith her fiock of babies, it was 
" home," and for many a cowboy, passing the time 
of day with the genial Irishwoman, it was the near- 
est approach to " home " that he knew from one 
year's end to another. 

1 Joe Ferris was made aware of this scornful reference to his 
judgment through a cowboy, Carl Hollenberg, who overheard it, and 
sixteen years later came into Joe's store one September day shouting, 
" That fool, Joe Ferris, says that Roosevelt will be President some 
day!" The point was that Roosevelt had that week succeeded 
McKinlev in the White House. 



THE BUTTERMILK 259 

Shortly after Mrs. Roberts had moved to her new 
house, Roosevelt and Merrifield paid her a call. 
Mrs. Roberts, who had the only milch cow in the 
Bad Lands, had been churning, and offered Roose- 
velt a glass of buttermilk. He drank it with an 
appreciation worthy of a rare occasion. But as he 
rode off again, he turned to Merrifield with his 
teeth set. 

"Heavens, Merrifield!" he exclaimed, "don't 
you ever do that again! " 

Merrifield was amazed. " Do what? " 

" Put me in a position where I have to drink 
buttermilk. I loathe the stuff! " 

" But why did you drink it? " 

"She brought it out!" he exclaimed, "And it 
would have hurt her feelings if I hadn't. But look 
out! I don't want to have to do it again I " 

Mrs. Roberts spared him thenceforward, and 
there was nothing, therefore, to spoil for Roosevelt 
the merriment of the Irishwoman's talk and the 
stimulus of her determination and courage. There 
were frequent occasions consequently when " the 
boys from the Maltese Cross " foregathered in the 
Roberts cabin, and other occasions, notably Sun- 
days (when Sylvane and Merrifield and George 
Myers had picked up partners in Medora) when 
they all called for " Lady Roberts " as chaperon 
and rode up the valley together. They used to 
take peculiar delight in descending upon Mrs. 
Cummins and making her miserable. 

It was not difificult to make that poor lady un- 



260 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

happy. She had a fixed notion of what life should 
be for people who were " nice " and " refined," 
and her days were a succession of regrets at the 
shortcomings of her neighbors. She was in many 
ways an admirable woman, but she seemed incap- 
able of extending the conception of gentility which 
a little Pennsylvania town had given her, and she 
never caught a gleam of the real meaning of the 
life of which she was a part. She wanted everything 
in the Bad Lands exactly as she had had it at home. 
" Well," as Mrs. Roberts subsequently remarked, 
" she had one time of it, I'm telling you, in those 
old rough days." 

Mrs. Cummins was not the only neighbor who 
furnished amusement during those spring days of 
1885 to the boys at the Maltese Cross. The Eatons' 
" dude ranch " had developed in a totally unex- 
pected direction. From being a headquarters for 
Easterners who wanted to hunt in a wild country, 
it had become a kind of refuge to which wealthy 
and distracted parents sent such of their offspring 
as w^ere over-addicted to strong drink. Why any 
parent should send a son to the Bad Lands with the 
idea of putting him out of reach of temptation is 
beyond comprehension. The Eatons did their part 
nobly and withheld intoxicating drinks from their 
guests, but Bill Williams and the dozen or more 
other saloon-keepers in Medora were under no 
compulsion to follow their example. The " dudes " 
regularly came " back from town " with all they 
could carr\' without and within; and the cowboys 



HOSPITALITY AT YULE 261 

round about swore solemnly that you couldn't put 
your hand in the crotch of any tree within a hundred 
yards of the Eatons' ranch-house without coming 
upon a bottle concealed by a dude being cured of 
" the drink." 

The neighbors who were most remote from Roose- 
velt in point of space continued to be closest in 
point of intimacy. The Langs were now well estab- 
lished and Roosevelt missed no opportunity to 
visit with them for an hour or a day, thinking 
nothing apparently of the eighty-mile ride there 
and back in comparison with the prospect of an 
evening in good company. The Langs were, in 
fact, excellent company. They knew books and 
they knew also the graces of cultivated society. 
To visit with them was to live for an hour or two 
in the quietude of an Old World hom.e, with all 
the Old World's refinements and the added tang 
of bizarre surroundings; and even to one who 
was exuberantly glad to be a cowboy, this had 
its moments of comfort after weeks of the rough 
frontier existence. Cultivated Englishmen were 
constantly appearing at the Langs', sent over by 
their fathers, for reasons som.etimes mysterious, to 
stay for a week or a year. Some of them proved 
very bad cowboys, but all of them were delightful 
conversationalists. Their efforts to enter into the 
life of the Bad Lands were not always successful, 
and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones on one notable occa- 
sion, when the son of a Scotch baronet undertook 
to criticize him for misconduct, expressed his 



262 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

opinion of the scions of British aristocracy that 
drifted into Medora, in terms that hovered and 
poised and struck like birds of prey. Lincoln Lang, 
who was present, described Bill Jones's discourse 
as " outside the pale of the worst I have ever heard 
uttered by human mouth," which meant something 
in that particular place. But Bill Jones was an 
Irishman, and he was not naturally tolerant of 
idiosyncrasies of speech and manner. Roosevelt, 
on the whole, liked the " younger sons," and they 
in turn regarded him with a kind of awe. He was 
of their own class, and yet there was something 
in him which stretched beyond the barriers which 
confined them, into regions where they were lost 
and bewildered, but he was completely at home. 

They all had delightful evenings together at 
Yule, with charades and punning contests, and music 
on the piano which Lincoln Lang had brought out 
through the gumbo against all the protests of nature. 
Mrs. Lang was an admirable cook and a liberal 
and hospitable hostess, which was an added reason 
for riding eighty miles. 

To the Scotch family, exiled far up the Little 
Missouri, Roosevelt's visits were notable events. 
" We enjoyed having him," said Lincoln Lang 
long afterward, " more than anything else in the 
world." 

To Gregor Lang, Rooeevelt's visits brought an 
opportunity for an argument with an opponent 
worthy of his steel. The Scotchman's alert intelli- 
gence pined sometimes, in those intellectually 



LANG'S LOVE OF DEBATE 263 

desolate wastes, for exercise in the keen give-and- 
take of debate. The average cowboy was not 
noted for his conversational powers, and Gregor 
Lang clutched avidly at every possibility of talk. 
It was said of him that he loved a good argument so 
much that it did not always make much difference 
to him which side of the argument he took. On 
one occasion he was spending the night at the 
Batons', when the father of the four " Eaton boys " 
was visiting his sons. " Old man " Eaton was a 
Republican; Lang was a Democrat. They began 
arguing at supper, and they argued all night long. 
To Eaton, his Republicanism was a religion (as it 
was to many in those middle eighties), and he 
wrestled with the error in Lang's soul as a saint 
wrestles with a devil. As the day dawned, Gregor 
Lang gave an exclamation of satisfaction. " It's 
been a fine talk we've had, Mistur-r Eaton," he 
cried. " Now suppose you tak' my side and I 
tak' yours? " What Eaton said thereupon has not 
been recorded ; but Gregor Lang went home happy. 
With all his love for forensics as such, Lang had 
solid convictions. They were a Democrat's, and in 
consequence many of them were not Roosevelt's. 
Roosevelt attacked them with energy and Lang 
defended them with skill. Roosevelt, who loved 
rocking-chairs, had a way of rocking all over the 
room in his excitement. The debates were long, but 
always friendly; and neither party ever admitted 
defeat. The best that Gregor Lang would say was, 
" Well, Mr. Roosevelt, when you ar-re Pr-resident 



264 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

of the United States, you may r-run the gover-m- 
ment the way you mind to." He did admit in the 
bosom of his family, however, that Roosevelt made 
" the best ar-rgument for the other side " he had 
ever heard. 

Lang's love of an argument, which to unfriendly 
ears might have sounded like contentiousness, did 
not serve to make the excellent Scotchman popular 
with his neighbors. He had a habit, moreover, 
of saying exactly what he thought, regardless of 
whom he might hit. He was not politic at all. He 
had, in fact, come to America and to Dakota too 
late in life altogether to adapt a mind, steeped in 
the manners and customs of the Old World, to the 
new conditions of a country in almost every way 
alien to his own. He was dogmatic in his theories 
of popular government and a little stubborn in 
his conviction that there was nothing which the 
uneducated range-rider of the Bad Lands could teach 
a thinking man like him. But his courage was fine. 
Against the protests of his Southern neighbors, he 
insisted on treating a negro cowboy in his outfit as 
on complete equality with his white employees; and 
bore the storm of criticism with equanimity. Such 
a spirit was bound to appeal to Roosevelt. 

At the INlaltese Cross there was a steady stream 
of callers. One of them, a hawk-eyed, hawk-nosed 
cowpuncher named " Nitch " Kendley, who was 
one of the first settlers in the region, arrived one 
day when Roosevelt was alone. 

" Come on in," said Roosevelt, " and we'll have 



NITCH COMES TO DINE 265 

some dinner. I can't bake biscuits, but I can cook 
meat. If you can make the biscuits, go ahead, and 
I will see what I can do for the rest of the dinner." 

So " Nitch " made the biscuits and put them in 
the oven, and Roosevelt cut what was left of a 
saddle of venison and put it in a pan to fry. Then 
the two cooks went outdoors, for the cabin was 
small, and the weather was hot. 

Roosevelt began to talk, whereupon " Nitch," 
who had ideas of his own, began to talk also with 
a fluency which was not customary, for he was 
naturally a taciturn man. They both forgot the 
dinner. *' Nitch " never knew how long they talked. 

They were brought back to the world of facts by 
a smell of burning. The cabin was filled with smoke, 
and " you could not," as '' Nitch " subsequently 
remarked, " have told your wife from your mother- 
in-law three feet away." On investigation it proved 
that " Nitch's " biscuits and Roosevelt's meat were 
burnt to cinders. 

Merrifield and Sylvane were out after deer, and 
Roosevelt and his companion -waited all afternoon 
in vain for the two men to return. At last, toward 
evening, Roosevelt made some coffee, which, as 
" Nitch " remarked, " took the rough spots off 
the biscuits." 

" If we'd talked less," reflected *' Nitch," " we'd 
have had more dinner." 

Roosevelt laughed. He did not seem to mind the 
loss of a meal. " Nitch " was quite positive that 
he was well repaid. They went on talking as before. 



XVI 

He went so high above the earth, 

Lights from Jerusalem shone. 
Right thar we parted company, 

And he came down alone. 
I hit terra firma, 

The buckskin's heels struck free, 
And brought a bunch of stars along 

To dance in front of me. 

Cowboy song 

Early In May, Roosevelt's men returned from Fer- 
gus Falls with a thousand head of cattle. In a let- 
ter to his brother, Sewall describes what he terms 
the " Cattle Torture," in which he had been engaged. 
" It will perhaps interest you," he adds. " It certainly 
must have been interesting to the cattle." 

The cattle were driven in from the country [Sewall 
writes] and put in a yard. This was divided in the mid- 
dle by a fence and on one side was a narrow lane where 
you could drive six or eight Cattle at a time. This nar- 
rowed so when you got to the fence in the middle only 
one could pass by the post, and beyond the post there 
was a strong gate which swang off from the side fence 
at the top so to leave it wide enough to go through. 
Well, they would rush them into the shoot and when 
they came to the gate would let it swing off at the top. 
The animal would make a rush but it was so narrow 
at the bottom it would bother his feet and there was a 
rope went from the top of the gate over his back to a 
lever on the outside of the yard. While he was trying to 
get through, the fellow on the lever would catch him 
with the gate and then the frying began. 

They had two good big fires and about four irons in 



CATTLE TORTURE 267 

each and they would put an iron on each side. One is a 
Triangle about four inches on a side, the other an Elk- 
horn about six inches long with two prongs. It smelt 
around there as if Coolage was burning Parkman,^ or 
was it Webster? I remember hearing father read about 
the smell of meat burning when I was a boy, and I kept 
thinking of that and Indians burning Prisoners at the 
stake. Well, we burnt them all in less than a day and a 
half and then hustled them into the cars. 

They of course did not get much to eat for two or 
three days before they started. Then we put from 50 
to 57 yearlings in a carr and from 32 to 37 two year olds 
and started. The poor cattle would lay down, then of 
course as many as could stand on them would do so. 
The ones that got down would stay there till they were 
completely trod under and smothered unless you made 
them get up. So I would go in and shove and crowd 
and get them off of the down ones, then I would seize 
a tail and the man with me would punch from outside 
with a pole with a brad in it. This would invigorate 
the annimal as he used the pole with great energy, and 
with my help they would get up. 

I did not dislike the work though it was very warm 
and the cattle were rather slippery to hold on to after 
they had been down, but it was lively and exciting 
climbing from one carr to the other when they were 
going, especially in the night. We went to see them every 
time they stopped and some times we did not have time 
before we started. Then we would have to go from one 
to the other while they were going, and after we had 
got through run back over the tops of the cars. 

Ours were all alive when we got to Medora. How they 
ever lived through, I don't see. John Bean would liked 
to have bought me by the cord, and if he had been around 
Medora, think I could have sold myself for dressing. 

* A celebrated murder case in Boston. 



268 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt met them at Medora and set out with 
them to drive the cattle north to Elkhorn Ranch. 
It was customary to drive cattle along the river 
bottom, but there had been a series of freshets 
that spring which had turned the Little Missouri 
into a raging torrent and its bottom into a mass of 
treacherous quicksands. The river valley would 
consequently have been dangerous even for mature 
stock. For the young cattle the dangers of the 
crossings were too great even for a none too pru- 
dent man to hazard. Accordingly Roosevelt decided 
to drive the animals down along the divide west of 
Medora between the Little Missouri and the Beaver. 

Owing to a variety of causes, the preparations for 
the trip had been inadequate. He had only five men 
to help him; Sewall and Dow and Rowe and two 
others. Of these, only one was a cowpuncher of ex- 
perience. Roosevelt placed him in charge. It was 
not long, however, before he discovered that this man, 
who was a first-rate cowhand, was wholly incapable 
of acting as head. Cattle and cowpunchers, chuck- 
wagon and saddle-band, in some fashion which no- 
body could explain became so snarled up with each 
other that, after disentangling the situation, he was 
forced to relegate his expert to the ranks and take 
command himself. 

His course lay, for the most part, through the 
Bad Lands, which enormously increased the diffi- 
culty of driving the cattle. A herd always travels 
strung out in lines, and a thousand head thus going 
almost in single file had a way of stretching out an 



TRAILING CATTLE 269 

appreciable distance, with the strong, speedy an- 
imals in the van and the weak and sluggish ones in- 
evitably in the rear. Roosevelt put two of his men 
at the head of the column, two more at the back, and 
himself with another man rode constantly up and 
down the flanks. In the tangled mass of rugged 
hills and winding defiles through which the trail 
led, it was no easy task for six men to keep the cat- 
tle from breaking off in different directions or pre- 
vent the strong beasts that formed the vanguard 
from entirely outstripping the laggards. The spare 
saddle-ponies also made trouble, for several of them 
were practically unbroken. 

Slowly and with infinite difificulty they drove 
the herd northward. To add to their troubles, the 
weather went through "a. gamut of changes," as 
Roosevelt wrote subsequently, "with that extraor- 
dinary and inconsequential rapidity which charac- 
terizes atmospheric variations on the plains." The 
second day out, there was a light snow falling all 
day, with a wind blowing so furiously that early in 
the afternoon they were obliged to drive the cattle 
down into a sheltered valley to keep them overnight. 
The cold was so intense that even in the sun the 
water froze at noon. Forty-eight hours afterwards 
it was the heat that was causing them to suffer. 

The inland trail which they were following had its 
disadvantages, for water for the stock was scarce 
there, and the third day, after watering the cattle 
at noon, Roosevelt and his men drove them along 
the very backbone of the divide through barren 



270 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and forbidding country. Night came on while they 
were still many miles from the string of deep 
pools which held the nearest water. The cattle 
were thirsty and restless, and in the first watch, 
which Roosevelt shared with one of his cowboys, 
when the long northern spring dusk had given 
way at last to complete darkness, the thirsty ani- 
mals of one accord rose to their feet and made a 
break for liberty. Roosevelt knew that the only 
hope of saving his herd from hopeless dispersion 
over a hundred hills lay in keeping the cattle close 
together at the very start. He rode along at their 
side as they charged, as he had never ridden in his 
life before. In the darkness he could see only dimly 
the shadowy outline of the herd, as with whip and 
spur he ran his pony along its edge, turning back 
the beasts at one point barely in time to wheel 
and keep them in at another. The ground was 
cut up by numerous gullies, and more than once 
Roosevelt's horse turned a complete somersault 
with his rider. Why he was not killed a half-dozen 
times over is a mytsery. He was dripping with 
sweat, and his pony was quivering like a quaking 
aspen when, after more than an hour of the most 
violent exertion, he and his companion finally 
succeeded in quieting the herd. 

I have had hard work and a good deal of fun since 
I came out [Roosevelt wrote to Lodge on the fifteenth of 
May]. To-morrow I start for the round-up; and I have 
just come in from taking a thousand head of cattle up 
on the trail. The weather was very bad and I had 



ROOSEVELT'S HORSEMANSHIP 271 

my hands full, working night and day, and being able 
to take off my clothes but once during the week I was 
out. 

The river has been very high recently, and I have 
had on two or three occasions to swim my horse across 
it; a new experience to me. Otherwise I have done 
little that is exciting in the way of horsemanship; as 
you know I am no horseman, and I cannot ride an un- 
broken horse with any comfort. The other day I lunched 
with the Marquis de Mores, a French cavalry officer; 
he has hunted all through France, but he told me he 
never saw in Europe such stiff jumping as we have on 
the Meadowbrook hunt. 

Whether he was or was not a horseman is a ques- 
tion on which there is authority which clashes with 
Roosevelt's. A year's experience with broncos had 
taught him much, and though Sylvane remained 
indisputably the crack rider of the Maltese Cross 
outfit, Roosevelt more than held his own. " He 
was not a purty rider," as one of his cowpuncbing 
friends expressed it, " but a hell of a good rider." 

Roosevelt was a firm believer in " gentling " 
rather than " breaking " horses. He had no senti- 
mental illusions concerning the character of the 
animals with which he was dealing, but he never 
ceased his efforts to make a friend instead of a 
suspicious servant of a horse. Most of Roosevelt's 
horses became reasonably domesticated, but there 
was one that resisted all Roosevelt's friendly 
advances. He was generally regarded as a fiend 
incarnate. " The Devil " was his name. 

"The trouble with training the Devil," said 



272 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Packard, who was present at the Maltese Cross one 
day when Roosevelt was undertaking to ride him, 
" was that he was a wild four-year-old when first 
ridden and this first contest was a victory for the 
horse. If the rider had won, Devil might have 
become a good saddle horse. But when the horse 
wins the first contest, one can look for a fight every 
time he is saddled. The chances favor his becoming 
a spoiled horse. I happened to arrive at the Chim- 
ney Butte Ranch one day just as the horse-herd 
was being driven into the corral. Devil knew he 
was due for a riding-lesson. It was positively un- 
canny to see him dodge the rope. On several oc- 
casions he stopped dead in his tracks and threw his 
head down between his front legs; the loop slid- 
ing harmlessly off his front quarters, where not even 
an ear projected. But Devil couldn't watch two 
ropes at once, and Roosevelt * snared ' him from 
the corral fence while Merrifield was whirling his 
rope for the throw. Instantly Devil stopped and 
meekly followed Roosevelt to the snubbing-post, 
where he was tied up for a period of ' gentling.' 
The ordinar>^ procedure was to throw such a horse 
and have one man sit on his head while another 
bound a handkerchief over his eyes. He was then 
allowed to get on his feet and often made little 
resistance while the saddle and bridle were being 
adjusted. The rider then mounted and the fire- 
works began as soon as he jerked the handkerchief 
from the horse's eyes. 

" Devil had gone through this procedure so often 



GENTLING THE DEVIL 273 

that he knew it by heart. He had, however, not 
become accustomed to being ' gentled ' instead of 
' busted.' As Roosevelt walked toward him, the 
horse's fear of man overcame his dread of the rope, 
and he surged back until the noose was strangling 
him. 

"It was half an hour before he allowed Roosevelt 
to put a hand on his neck. All this was preliminary 
to an attempt to blindfolding Devil without throw- 
ing, and at last it was accomplished. He then 
submitted to being saddled and bridled, though he 
shrank from every touch as though it were a hot 
iron. The handkerchief was then taken from his 
eyes, and he began bucking the empty saddle like 
a spoiled horse of the worst t>^pe. Every one took 
a seat on top of the corral fence to await the time 
when he had strangled and tired himself to a stand- 
still. Several times he threw himself heavily by 
tripping on the rope or by tightening it suddenly. 
And at last he gave it up, standing with legs braced, 
with heaving flanks and gasping breath. 

" Roosevelt walked toward him with a pail of 
water and the first real sign that ' gentling ' was 
better than * busting ' was when the wild-eyed 
Devil took a swallow; the first time in his life he 
had accepted a favor from the hand of man. It 
was too dangerous to attempt riding in the corral, 
and Devil was led out to some bottom-land which 
was fairly level; the end of the rope around the 
horn of Merrifield's saddle and Sylvane Ferris on 
another saddle horse ready to urge Devil into a 



274 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

run as soon as Roosevelt had mounted. A vain 
attempt at mounting was made, and finally Devil 
had to be blindfolded. Then came the mounting, 
and, almost instantty with the lifting of the blind- 
fold, Roosevelt was sprawling in the sagebrush. 
Somewhat scratched he was, and his teeth glittered 
in the way which required a look at his eyes to tell 
whether it was a part of a smile or a look of deadly 
determination. It required no second glance to 
know that Devil was going to be ridden or Roosevelt 
was going to be hurt. There was no disgrace in 
being thrown. It was done in the same way that 
Devil had unhorsed other men whom Roosevelt 
would have been first to call better riders than 
himself. There was a sudden arching of the back 
which jolted the rider at least six inches from the 
saddle, then a whirling jump which completed a 
half-turn, and a landing, stiff-legged, on the fore 
feet while the hind hoofs kicked high in the air. 
In his six-inch descent the rider was met with the 
saddle or the flanks of the horse and catapulted 
into space. The only way to ' stay with the leather ' 
was to get the horse to running instead of making 
this first jump. , 

" About every other jump we could see twelve 
acres of bottom-land between Roosevelt and the 
saddle, but now the rider stayed with the animal 
a little longer than before. Four times that beast 
threw him, but the fifth time Roosevelt maneuvered 
him into a stretch of quicksand in the Little Mis- 
souri River. This piece of strategy saved the day, 



THE SPRING ROUND-UP 275 

made Roosevelt a winner, and broke the record of 
the Devil, for if there is any basis of operations 
fatal to fancy bucking it is quicksand. After a 
while Roosevelt turned the bronco around, brought 
him out on dry land, and rode him until he was as 
meek as a rabbit." 

The round-up that spring gave Roosevelt an 
opportunity to put his horsemanship to the severest 
test there was. 

Theodore Roosevelt is now at Medora [the Mandan 
Pio7ieer reported on May 22d], and has been there for 
some time past. He is preparing his outfit for the round- 
up, and will take an active part in the business itself. 

Roosevelt had, in fact, determined to work with 
the round-up as an ordinary cowpuncher, and 
shortly after the middle of May he started with 
his " outfit " south to the" appointed meeting-place 
west of the mouth of Box Elder Creek in south- 
eastern Montana. With him were all the regular 
cowboys of the Maltese Cross, besides a half-dozen 
other '' riders," and Walter Watterson, a sandy- 
haired and faithful being who drove Tony and 
Dandy, the wheel team, and Thunder and Light- 
ning, the leaders, hitched to the rumbling " chuck- 
wagon." Watterson was also the cook, and in 
both capacities was unexcelled. Each cowpuncher 
attached to the " outfit," or to " the wagon " as it 
was called on the round-up, had his own " string " 
of ten or a dozen ponies, thrown together into a 
single herd which was in charge of the "horse- 
wranglers," one for the night and one for the morn- 



276 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

ing, customarily the youngest (and most abused) 
cowboys on the ranch. 

Roosevelt's " string " was not such as to make him 
look forward to the round-up with easy assurance. 
He had not felt that he had a right, even as " the 
boss," to pick the best horses for himself out of the 
saddle band of the Maltese Cross. With Sylvane, 
Merrifield, Myers, and himself choosing in suc- 
cession, like boys picking teams for "one ol' cat," 
" the boss " having first choice on each round, he 
took what Fate and his own imperfect judgment 
gave him. At the conclusion of the " picking," he 
found that, of the nine horses he had chosen, four 
were broncos, broken only in the sense that each 
had once or twice been saddled. One of them, he 
discovered promptly, could not possibly be bridled 
or saddled single-handed; it was very difficult to 
get on him and very difficult to get off; he was 
exceedingly nervous, moreover, if his rider moved 
his hands or feet; " but he had," Roosevelt de- 
clared, " no bad tricks," which, in view of his other 
qualities, must have been a real comfort. The 
second allowed himself to be tamed and was soon 
quiet. The third, on the other hand, turned out 
to be one of the worst buckers Roosevelt possessed ; 
and the fourth had a habit which was even worse, 
for he would balk and throw himself over backward. 
It struck Roosevelt that there was something 
about this refractory animal's disposition, to say 
nothing of his Roman nose, which greatly reminded 
him of the eminent Democrat, General Ben Butler, 




THE MALTESE CROSS " OUTFIT' 




THE MALTESE CROSS "CHUCK- WAGON' 



The man on horseback is Sylvane Ferris; the man loading the 
wagon is Walter Watterson, Roosevelt's teamster and cook 



THE FIRST ENCAMPMENT 277 

and " Ben Butler " became that bronco's name. 
Roosevelt had occasion to remember it. 

The encampment where the round-up was to 
begin furnished a scene of bustle and turmoil. 
From here and there the heavy four-horse wagons 
one after another jolted in, the " horse-wranglers " 
rushing madly to and fro in the endeavor to keep 
the different saddle bands from mingling. Single 
riders, in groups of two or three, appeared, each 
driving his " string." The wagons found their 
places, the teamsters unharnessed the horses and 
unpacked the " cook outfit," the foreman sought 
out the round-up captain, the " riders " sought 
out their friends. Here there was larking, there 
there was horse-racing, elsewhere there was " a 
circus with a pitchin' bronc'," and foot-races and 
wrestling-matches. A round-up always had more 
than a little of the character of a county fair. For 
though the work was hard, and practically continu- 
ous for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, it was 
full of excitement. The cowboys regarded it largely 
as sport, and the five wxeks they spent at it ver>^ 
much of a holiday.^ 

* Roosevelt: Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. 

"Am inclined to think that this assertion of Mr. Roosevelt's would be 
open to criticism on the part of the real old-time cowpunchers. Much 
depended upon the weather, of course, but in a general way most of 
them regarded the work as anything but a picnic. Usually, it came 
closer to being 'Hell,' before we got through with it, as was the case 
on that particular round-up in 1885, when Mr. Roosevelt was along. 
Rained much of the time, and upon one occasion kept at it for a week 
on end. Tied the whole outfit up for several days at one point and I 
recall we had to wring the water out of our blankets every night be- 



278 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt reported to the captain of the round- 
up, a man named Osterhaut, saying that he expected 
to be treated as a common cowhand and wanted 
to be shown no favors; and the captain took him 
at his word. He promptly justified his existence. 
He did not pretend to be a good roper, and his 
poor eyesight forbade any attempt to " cut " the 
cattle that bore his brand out of the milling herd; 
but he " wrestled calves " with the best of them; 
he rode "the long circle"; he guarded the day- 
herd and the night-herd and did the odd (and 
often perilous) jobs of the cowpuncher with the 
same cool unconcern that characterized the pro- 
fessional cowboy. 

" Three-Seven " Bill Jones was on the round- 
up as foreman of the " Three-Seven Ranch." 
(" There," as Howard Eaton remarked with enthu- 
siasm, " was a cowboy for your whiskers! ") He 
was a large, grave, taciturn man, capable of almost 
incredible feats of physical endurance. Dantz over- 
heard him, one day, discussing Roosevelt. 

" That four-eyed maverick," remarked " Three- 
Seven " Bill, " has sand in his craw a-plenty." 

fore retiring. The boys liked to work on general round-ups, hard and 
all as they were, mainly because it brought them into contact with the 
boys from other ranges, so that they had a chance to renew old acquaint- 
ances. Generally the boys were all inclined to be a little wild at the 
start, or until cooled down by a few days of hard work. After that 
things got into a steady groove, eighteen hours per day in the saddle 
being nothing unusual. 

"At the start, the round-up bore many of the aspects of a county 
fair, just as Mr. Roosevelt states, and unless the trip proved to 
be unusually hard there was always more or less horse-play in the 
air." — Lincoln Lang. 



THE DAY'S WORK 279 

As with all other forms of work [Roosevelt wrote years 

after], so on the round-up, a man of ordinary power, 

who nevertheless does not shirk things merely because 

they are disagreeable or irksome, soon earns his place. 

There were crack riders and ropers, who, just because 

they felt such overweening pride in their own prowess, 

were not really very valuable men. Continually on the 

circles a cow or a calf would get into some thick patch of 

bulberry bush and refuse to come out; or when it was 

getting late we would pass some bad lands that would 

probably not contain cattle, but might; or a steer would 

turn fighting mad, or a calf grow tired and want to lie 

down. If in such a case the man steadily persists in 

doing the unattractive thing, and after two hours of 

exasperation and harassment does finally get the cow 

out, and keep her out, of the bulberry bushes, and drives 

her to the wagon, or finds some animals that have been 

passed by in the fourth or fifth patch of bad lands he 

hunts through, or gets the calf up on his saddle and takes 

it in anyhow, the foreman soon grows to treat him as 

having his uses and as being an asset of worth in the 

round-up, even though neither a fancy roper nor a fancy 

rider. ^ 

It was an active life,^ and Roosevelt had no 
opportunity to complain of restlessness. Breakfast 
came at three and dinner at eight or nine or ten in 
the morning, at the conclusion sometimes of fifty 
miles of breakneck riding. From ten to one, while 
the experts were " cutting out the cows," Roosevelt 
was " on day-herd," as the phrase went, riding 
slowly round and round the herd, turning back into 

* Autobiography. 

' Roosevelt gives an admirable description of a round-up in his 
Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail. 



280 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

it any cattle that attempted to escape. In the 
afternoon he would " ride circle " again, over the 
hills; and at night, from ten to twelve, he would 
again be on guard, riding round the cattle, humming 
some eerie lullaby. It was always the same song 
that he sang, but what the words were or the 
melody is a secret that belongs to the wind. 

When utterly tired, it was hard to have to get up for 
one's trick at night-herd [Roosevelt wrote in his " Auto- 
biography "]. Nevertheless on ordinary nights the two 
hours round the cattle in the still darkness were pleasant. 
The loneliness, under the vast empty sky, and the silence 
in which the breathing of the cattle sounded loud, and 
the alert readiness to meet any emergency which might 
suddenly arise out of the formless night, all combined 
to give one a sense of subdued interest. 

As he lay on the ground near by, after his watch, 
he liked to listen to the wild and not unmusical 
calls of the cowboys as they rode round the half- 
slumbering steers. There was something magical in 
the strange sound of it under the stars. Now and 
then a song would float through the clear air. 

" The days that I was hard up, 
I never shall forget. 
The days that I was hard up — 
I may be well off yet. 
In days when I was hard up, 
And wanted wood and fire, 
I used to tie my shoes up 
With little bits of wire." 

It was a favorite song with the night-herders. 
^One night, early in the round-up, Roosevelt 



DIVERSIONS 281 

failed satisfactorily to identify the direction in 
which he was to §0 in order to reach the night-herd. 
It was a pitch-dark night, and he wandered about 
in it for hours on end, finding the cattle at last 
only when the sun rose. He was greeted with 
withering scorn by the injured cowpuncher who had 
been obliged to stand double guard because Roose- 
velt had failed to relieve him. 

Sixteen hours of work left little time for social 
diversions, but even when they were full of sleep 
the cowboys would draw up around the camp-fire, 
to smoke and sing and " swap yarns " for an hour. 
There were only three musical instruments in the 
length and breadth of the Bad Lands, the Langs' 
piano, a violin which " Fiddling Joe " played at 
the dances over Bill Williams's saloon, and Howard 
Eaton's banjo. The banjo traveled in state in the 
mess- wagon of the " Custer Trail," and hour on 
hour, about the camp-fire on the round-up, Eaton 
would play to the dreamy delight of the weary men. 
The leading spirit of those evenings was Bill Dantz, 
who knew a hundred songs by heart, and could 
spin an actual happening into a yarn so thrilling 
and so elaborate in every detail that no one could 
tell precisely where the foundation of fact ended 
and the Arabian dome and minaret of iridescent 
fancy began. 

Roosevelt found the cowboys excellent compan- 
ions. They were a picturesque crew with their 
broad felt hats, their flannel shirts of various 
colors, overlaid with an enamel of dust and per- 



282 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

spiration, baked by the Dakota sun, their bright 
silk handkerchiefs knotted round the neck, their 
woolly " shaps," their great silver spurs, their 
loosely hanging cartridge-belts, their ominous re- 
volvers. Roosevelt was struck by the rough courtesy 
with which the men treated each other. There 
was very little quarreling or fighting, due, Roosevelt 
suspected, to the fact that all the men were armed ; 
for, it seemed, that when a quarrel was likely to 
end fatally, men rather hesitated about embarking 
upon it. The moral tone of the round-up camp 
seemed to Roosevelt rather high. There was a 
real regard for truthfulness, a firm insistence on 
the sanctity of promises, and utter contempt for 
meanness and cowardice and dishonesty and hy- 
pocrisy and the disposition to shirk. The cow- 
puncher was a potential cattle-owner and good 
citizen, and if he went wild on occasion it was largely 
because he was so exuberantly young. In years he 
was generally a boy, often under twenty. But he 
did the work of a man, and he did it with singular 
conscientiousness and the spirit less of an employee 
than of a member of an order bound by vows, un- 
spoken but accepted. He obeyed orders without 
hesitation, though it were to mount a bucking 
bronco or " head off " a stampede. He worked 
without complaint in a smother of dust and cattle 
fumes at temperatures ranging as high as 136 
degrees; or, snow-blinded and frozen, he " rode 
line " for hours on end when the thermometer was 
fifty or more below zero. He was in constant peril 



PROFANITY 283 

of his life from the horns of milling cattle or the 
antics of a " mean " horse. Roosevelt was im- 
mensely drawn to the sinewy, hardy, and self- 
reliant adventurers; and they in turn liked him. 

Life in the camps was boisterous and the language 
beggared description. 

" With some of these fellows around here," Dr. 
Stickney, the Bad Lands' surgeon, once remarked, 
" profanity ceases to be a habit and becomes an 
art." 

" That's right," assented Sylvane. " Some stran- 
gers will get the hang of it, but others never do. 
There was ' Deacon ' Cummins, for instance. He'd 
say such a thing as 'damned calf.' You could 
tell he didn't know anything about it." 

The practical jokes, moreover, which the cowboys 
played on each other were not such as to make 
life easy for the timid. " The boys played all kinds 
of tricks," remarked Merrifield long after; " some- 
times they'd stick things under the horses' tails and 
play tricks of that kind an' there'd be a lot of hilarity 
to see the fellow get h'isted into the air; but they 
never bothered Mr. Roosevelt. He commanded 
ever>^body's respect." 

They did play one joke on him, however, but it 
did not turn out at all as they expected. 

Roosevelt's hunting proclivities were well known, 
for he never missed an opportunity, even on the 
round-up, to wander up some of the countless 
coulees with a rifle on his shoulder after deer, or 
to ride away over the prairies after antelope; and 



284 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the cowpunchers decided that it would be rather 
good fun to send him on a wild-goose chase. So 
they told him with great seriousness of a dozen 
antelope they had seen five or six miles back, 
suggesting that he had better go and get one. 

He " bit," as they knew he would, and, in spite 
of the fact that he had had a hard day on the round- 
up, saddled a horse and rode off in the direction 
which they had indicated. The cowboys specu- 
lated as to the language he would use when he came 
back. 

He was gone several hours, and he had two an- 
telope across his saddle-bow when he rode back into 
camp. 

" I found them all right," he cried, " just a 
quarter-mile from where you said." 

There was a shout from the cowboys. By general 
consent the joke was declared as not to be on the 
" four-eyed tenderfoot." 

Most of the men sooner or later accepted Roose- 
velt as an equal, in spite of his toothbrush and his 
habit of shaving; but there was one man, a surly 
Texan, who insisted on " picking on " Roosevelt 
as a dude. Roosevelt laughed. But the man con- 
tinued, in season and out of season, to make him 
the butt of his gibes. 

It occurred to the object of all this attention that 
the Texan was evidently under the impression that 
the " dude " was also a coward. Roosevelt decided 
that, for the sake of general harmony, that impres- 
sion had better be corrected at once. 



FIGHT OR BE FRIENDS! 285 

One evening, when the man was being particularly 
offensive, Roosevelt strode up to him. 

"You're talking like an ass!" he said sharply. 
" Put up or shut up! Fight now, or be friends! " 

The Texan stared, his shoulder dropped a little, 
and he shifted his feet. " I didn't mean no harm," 
he said. " Make It friends." 

They made it friends. 



XVII 

At a round-up on the Gily, 

One sweet mornin' long ago, 
Ten of us was throwed right freely 

By a hawse from Idaho. 
And we thought he'd go a-beggin' 

For a man to break his pride, 
Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin', 

Boastful Bill cut loose and cried — 

" Fm an on'ry proposition for to hurt; 
I fulfill my earthly mission with a quirt;l 
I kin ride the highest liver 
'Tweeji the Gulf and Powder River, 
And I'll break this thing as easy as Fdjlirt.^* 

So Bill climbed the Northern Fury, 

And they mangled up the air. 
Till a native of Missouri 

Would have owned his brag was fair. 
Though the plunges kep' him reelin' 

And the wind it flapped his shirt, 
Loud above the hawse's squealin' 

We could hear our friend assert — 

" I'm the one to take such rakin's as a joke. 
Some one hand me up the makin's of a smokel 
If you think my fame needs brighl'nin', 
W'y, I'll rope a streak of lightnin', 
And I'll cinch 'im up and spur 'im till he's broke." 

Then one caper of repulsion 

Broke that hawse's back in two. 
Cinches snapped in the convulsion; 

Skyward man and saddle flew. 
Up he mounted, never laggin'. 

While we watched him through our tears, 
And his last thin bit of braggin' 

Came a-droppin' to our ears — 

*' // you'd ever watched my habits very close. 

You wotdd know I've broke such rabbits by the gross. 

I have kep' my talent hidin'; 

I'm too good for earthly ridin', 

And I'm off io bust the lightnin' — Adios! " 

Badger Clare 



THE MEAN HORSE 287 

If Roosevelt anticipated that he would have trouble 
with his untamed broncos, he was not disappointed. 
" The effort," as he subsequently remarked, " both 
to ride them, and to look as if I enjoyed doing so, 
on some cool morning when my grinning cowboy 
friends had gathered round *to see whether the high- 
headed bay could buck the boss off,' doubtless 
was of benefit to me, but lacked much of bein^ 
enjoyable." 

One morning, when the round-up " outfits " were 
camped on the Logging Camp Range, south of the 
Big Ox Bow, Roosevelt had a memorable struggle 
with one of his four broncos. The camp was directly 
behind the ranch-house (which the Eaton brothers 
owned), and close by was a chasm some sixty feet 
deep, a great gash in the valley which the torrents 
of successive springs had through the centuries cut 
there. The horse had to be blind-folded before he 
would allow a saddle to be put on him. 

Lincoln Lang was among the cowboys who stood 
in an admiring circle, hoping for the worst. 

" Mr. Roosevelt mounted, with the blind still 
on the horse," Lang said, telling the story after- 
ward, " so that the horse stood still, although with 
a well-defined hump on his back, which, as we all 
knew very well, meant trouble to come. As soon 
as Mr. Roosevelt got himself fixed in the saddle, 
the men who were holding the horse pulled off the 
blind and turned him loose." 

Here Bill Dantz, who was also in the " gallery," 
takes up the story: 



288 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" The horse did not buck. He started off quietly, 
in fact, until he was within a few feet of the chasm. 
Then he leapt in the air like a shot deer, and came 
down with all four feet buckled under him, jumped 
sideways and went in the air a second time, twisting 
ends." 

Here Lang resumes the narrative: 

" Almost any kind of a bucking horse is hard to 
ride, but the worst of all are the ! sunfishers ' who 
change end for end with each jump, maintaining 
the turning movement in one direction so that the 
effect is to get the rider dizzy. This particular 
horse was of that type, and almost simultaneous 
with the removal of the blind he was in gyroscopic 
action. 

" I am aware that Mr. Roosevelt did not like to 
' pull leather,' as the term goes, but this time at 
least he had to, but for the matter of that there 
were not m.any who would not have done the same 
thing. As nearly as I can rem.ember, he got the 
horn of his saddle in one hand and the cantle in 
the other, then sWung his w^eight well into the inside 
and hung like a leech. Of course, it took sheer grit 
to do it, because in thus holding himself tight to 
the saddle with his hands, he 'had to take full 
punishment, which can be avoided only when one 
has acquired the knack of balancing and riding 
loosely. 

"As it was, his glasses and six-shooter took the 
count within the first few jumps, but in one way or 
another he hung to it himself, until some of the boys 



BEN BUTLER 289 

rode up and got the horse headed into a straight- 
away by the liberal use of their quirts. Once they 
got him running, it was all over, of course. If I 
remember right, Mr. Roosevelt rode the horse on 
a long circle that morning and brought him in safe, 
hours later, as good as gold."^ 

The horse which Roosevelt had called " Ben 
Butler " was not so easily subdued. It was " Ben 
Butler's " special antic to fall over backward. He 
was a sullen, evil-eyed brute, with a curve in his 
nose and a droop in his nostrils, which gave him 
a ridiculous resemblance to the presidential candi- 
date of the Anti-Monopoly Party. He was a great 
man-killing bronco, with a treacherous streak, and 
Roosevelt had put him in his " string " against the 
protests of his own men. " That horse is a plumb 
outlaw," Bill Dantz declared, " an' outlaws is never 
safe. They kinda git bad and bust out at any time. 
He will sure kill you, sooner or later, if you try to 
ride him." 

One raw, chilly morning, Roosevelt, who had 
been ordered to ride " the outside circle," chose 
" Ben Butler " for his mount, because he knew the 

* " During the course of the Barnes-Roosevelt trial at Syracuse in 
1916, Roosevelt was taking dinner one evening at the house of Mr. 
Horace S. W'ilkinson. Chancellor Day, of Syracuse University, who 
was present, said: 'Mr. Roosevelt, my attention was first directed to 
you by an account of a scene when you were with the cowboys. It 
told of your trying to get astride a bronco, and it was a struggle. 
^^1^ you finally conquered him, and away you went in a cloud of dust.' 

'"Very true, very true,' said Roosevelt, 'but I rode him all the way 
from the tip of his ear to the end of his tail.'" — Rev. D. B. Thomp- 
son, Syracuse, N.Y. 



290 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

horse was tireless and could stand the long, swift 
ride better than any other pony he had. As Roose- 
velt mounted him, the horse reared and fell over 
backward. He had done that before, but this 
time he fell on his rider. Roosevelt, with a sharp 
pain in his shoulder, extricated himself and mounted 
once more. But the horse now refused to go in 
any direction, backward or forward. 

Sylvane and George Myers threw their lariats 
about the bronco's neck, and dragged him a few 
hundred yards, choking but stubborn, all four feet 
firmly planted and pawing the ground. When they 
released the ropes, " Ben Butler " lay down and 
refused to get up. 

The round-up had started; there was no time 
to waste. Sylvane gave Roosevelt his horse, Baldy, 
which sometimes bucked, but never went over 
backwards, and himself mounted the now re-arisen 
" Ben Butler." To Roosevelt's discomfiture, the 
horse that had given him so much trouble started 
off as meekly as any farm-horse. 

" Why," remarked Sylvane, not without a touch 
of triumph, " there's nothing the matter with this 
horse. . He's a plumb gentle horse." 

But shortly after, Roosevelt noticed that Sylvane 
had fallen behind. Then he heard his voice, in 
persuasive tones, " That's all right! Come along! " 
Suddenly a new note came into his entreaties. 
"Here you! Go on you! Hi, hi, fellows, help me 
out! He's laying on me! " 

They dragged Sylvane from under the sprawling 



DR. STICKNEY 291 

steed, whereupon Sylvane promptly danced a war- 
dance, spurs and all, on the iniquitous " Ben." 
Roosevelt gave up the attempt to take that parti- 
cular bronco on the round-up that day. 

" By gollies," remarked " Dutch Wannigan " in 
later days, " he rode some bad horses, some that 
did quite a little bucking around for us. I don't 
know if he got throwed. If he did, there wouldn't 
have been nothin' said about it. Some of those 
Eastern punkin-lilies now, those goody-goody fel- 
lows, if they'd ever get throwed off you'd never hear 
the last of it. He didn't care a bit. By gollies, if he 
got throwed off, he'd get right on again. He was 
a dandy fellow." 

The encounter with " Ben Butler " brought a 
new element into Roosevelt's cowpunching experi- 
ence, and made what remained of the round-up 
somewhat of an ordeal. For he discovered that the 
point of his shoulder was broken. Under other 
circumstances he would have gone to a doctor, 
but in the Bad Lands you did not go to doctors, 
for the simple reason that there was only one physi- 
cian in the whole region and he might at any given 
moment be anywhere from fifty to two hundred 
and fifty miles away. If you were totally incapaci- 
tated with a broken leg or a bullet in your lungs, 
you sent word to Dr. Stickney's office in Dickinson. 
The doctor might be north in the Killdeer Moun- 
tains or south in the Cave Hills or west in Mingus- 
ville, for the territory he covered stretched from 
Mandan a hundred and twenty miles east of Medora, 



292 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

to Glendive, the same distance westward, south to 
the Black Hills and north beyond the Canadian 
border, a stretch of country not quite as large as 
New England, but almost. The doctor covered it 
on horseback or in a buckboard; in the cab of a 
wild-cat engine or the caboose of a freight, or, on 
occasion, on a hand-car. He was as young as 
everybody else in that young country, utterly 
fearless, and, it seemed, utterly tireless. He rode 
out into the night careless alike of blinding sleet 
and drifting snow. At grilling speed he rode until 
his horse stood with heaving sides and nose droop- 
ing; then, at some ranch, he changed to another 
and rode on. Over a course of a hundred miles or 
more he would ride relays at a speed that seemed 
incredible, and at the end of the journey operate 
with a calm hand for a gun-shot wound or a cruelly 
broken bone, sometimes on the box of a mess- 
wagon turned upside down on the prairie. 

Dr. Stickney was from Vermont, a quiet, lean 
man with a warm smile and friendly eyes, a sense 
of humor and a zest for life. He had a reputation 
for never refusing a call whatever the distance or 
the weather. Sometimes he rode with a guide; 
more often he rode alone. He knew the landmarks 
for a hundred miles in any direction. At night, 
when the trail grew faint, he held his course by 
the stars ; when an unexpected blizzard swept down 
upon him and the snow hid the trail, he sought 
a brush-patch in a coulee and tramped back and 
forth to keep himself from freezing until the storm 



DINNER WITH MRS. CUMMINS 293 

had spent itself. It was a life of extraordinary devo- 
tion. Stickney took it with a laugh, blushing when 
men spoke well of him ; and called it the day's work. 

God alone knew where the doctor happened to 
be on the day that " Ben Butler " rolled over back- 
ward with Theodore Roosevelt. It is safe to surmise 
that Roosevelt did not inquire. You did not send 
for Dr. Stickney for a break in the point of your 
shoulder. You let the thing heal by itself and went 
on with your job. Of course, it was not pleasant; 
but there were many things that were not pleasant. 
It was, in fact, Roosevelt found, excruciating. But 
he said nothing about that. 

By the beginning of June, the round-up had 
worked down to Tepee Bottom, two or three miles 
south of the Maltese Cross, making its midday 
camp, one hot and sultry day, in a grove of ancient 
cottonwoods that stood like unlovely, weather- 
beaten, gnarled old men, within hailing distance of 
" Deacon " Cummins's ranch-house. A messenger 
from Mrs. Cummins arrived at the camp at noon 
inviting Roosevelt and three or four of his friends to 
dinner. A " home dinner " was not to be spurned, 
and they all rode over to the comfortable log cabin. 
The day was blistering, a storm hung in the humid 
air, and none of them remembered, not even Roose- 
velt, that " gentlemen " did not go to dinner parties 
in their shirt-sleeves, at least not in the world to 
which Mrs. Cummins liked to believe she belonged. 
Roosevelt was in his shirt and trousers, cowboy 
fashion. 



294 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

As the men prepared to sit down to dinner, Mrs. 
Cummins was obviously perturbed. She left the 
room, returning a minute later with a coat over 
her arm. 

" Mr. Roosevelt," she said, " I know you won't 
like to come to dinner without a coat. I have got 
one of Mr. Cummins's that will fit you. I am sure 
you will feel more comfortable." 

What Roosevelt's emotions were at being thus 
singled out and proclaimed a " dude " among the 
men he wanted, above all things, to consider him 
their peer, Roosevelt concealed at the moment and 
later only fitfully revealed. He accepted the coat 
with as good grace as he could muster, to the sup- 
pressed delight of his friends. 

But Mrs. Cum.mins was not yet done with her 
guest of honor. She had evidently been hurt, poor 
lady, by his failure to observe the amenities of 
social intercourse, for during the dinner she said 
to him, " I don't see why men and women of culture 
come out here and let the people pull them down. 
What they should do is to raise the people out here 
to their level." 

What Roosevelt answered is lost to histor>^; but 
Lincoln Lang, who was with him when he rode back 
to camp that afternoon, reported that Roosevelt's 
comments on the dinner party were " blistering." 
" He told my mother afterwards," said Lang in 
later times, " that Mrs. Cummins was out of place 
in the Bad Lands"; which was Mrs. Cummins's 
tragedy in a nutshell. 



THE STAMPEDE 295 

They moved the camp that same afternoon a 
mile or two north to a wide bottom that lay at the 
base of the peak known as Chimney Butte, north 
of Garner Creek and west of the Little Missouri. 
As evening approached, heavy black clouds began 
to roll up in the west, bringing rain. The rain 
became a downpour, through which flashes of light- 
ning and rumblings of thunder came with increasing 
violence. The cattle were very restless and uneasy, 
running up and down and trying here and there to 
break out of the herd. The guards were doubled in 
anticipation of trouble. 

At midnight, fearing a stampede, the night- 
herders, of whom Lincoln Lang happened to be 
one, sent a call of " all hands out." Roosevelt 
leaped on the pony he always kept picketed near 
him. Suddenly there was a terrific peal of thunder. 
The lightning struck alm.ost into the herd itself, 
and wnth heads and tails high the panic-stricken 
animals plunged off into the darkness. 

Will Dow was at Roosevelt's side. The tumult 
evidently had not affected his imperturbable gayety. 
"There'll be racing and chasing on Cannobie lea," 
Roosevelt heard him gayly quote. An instant later 
the night had swallowed him. 

For a minute or two Roosevelt could make out 
nothing except the dark forms of the beasts, running 
on every side of him like the black waters of a 
roaring river. He was conscious that if his horse 
should stumble there would be no hope for him in 
the path of those panicky hoofs. The herd split, a 



296 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

part turning to one side, while the other part kept 
straight ahead. Roosevelt galloped at top speed, 
hoping to reach the leaders and turn them. 

He heard a wild splashing ahead. One instant he 
was aware that the cattle in front of him and beside 
him were disappearing; the next, he himself was 
plunging over a cutbank into the Little Missouri. 
He bent far back in the saddle. His horse almost 
fell, recovered himself, plunged forward, and, strug- 
gling through water and quicksand, made the other 
side. 

For a second he saw another cowboy beside him. 
The man disappeared in the darkness and the deluge, 
and Roosevelt galloped off through a grove of 
cottonwoods after the diminished herd. The ground 
was rough and full of pitfalls. Once his horse 
turned a somersault and threw him. At last the 
cattle came to a halt, but soon they were again 
away through the darkness. Thrice again he halted 
them, and thrice again they stampeded. 

" The country was muddy and wet," said Lincoln 
Lang afterward. " We were having a heavy rain 
all night. I don't know how we ever got through. 
All we had was lightning flashes to go by. It was 
really one of the worst mix-ups I ever saw. That 
surely was a night." 

Day broke at last, and as the light filtered through 
the clouds Roosevelt could dimly discern where he 
was. He succeeded at last in turning back what 
remained of the cattle in the direction of the camp, 
gathering in stray groups of cattle as he went, and 



ROPING AN EARL'S SON 297 

driving them before him. He came upon a cowboy 
on foot carrying his saddle on his head. It was the 
man he had seen for a flash during the storm. His 
horse had run into a tree and been killed. He him- 
self had escaped by a miracle. 

The men in the camp were just starting on the 
" long circle" when Roosevelt returned. One of them 
saddled a fresh horse for him while he snatched a 
hasty breakfast; then he was off for the day's work. 

As only about half of the night-herd had been 
brought back, the circle-riding was particularly 
heavy, and it was ten hours before Roosevelt was 
back at the wagon camp once more for a hasty 
meal and a fresh horse. He finished work as the 
late twilight fell. He had been in the saddle forty 
hours, changing horses five times. That night he 
slept like the dead. 

The storm had raised the level of the river and 
filled every wash-out with swirling brown waters. 
The following day Roosevelt had an adventure 
which came within an ace of being tragedy and 
culminated in hilarious farce. He was riding with 
a young Englishman, the son of Lord Somebody or 
Other — the name is immaterial — who was living 
that spring with the Langs. Just north of the Custer 
Trail Ranch a bridge of loose stringers had been 
laid across the washout, which, except at times of 
heavy rains or melting snows, was completely dry. 
On this occasion, however, it was full to the banks, 
and had even flowed over the rude bridge, jumbling 
the light logs. 



298 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The stringers parted as their horses attempted 
to make their way gingerly across, and in an instant 
horses and riders and bridge timbers were flounder- 
ing indiscriminately in the rushing torrent. Roose- 
velt's horse worked his way out, but the Englishman, 
who was a good rider according to his lights, was 
not altogether used to mishaps of this sort and 
became excited. 

*' I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" he called to 
Roosevelt. 

Roosevelt snatched the lasso from his saddle. 
He was not famous as a roper, but on this occasion 
his " throw " went true. The rope descended over 
the shoulders of the British aristocrat, and an instant 
later Roosevelt had him on solid ground. 

"As he was yanked unceremoniously out of that 
creek," Roosevelt subsequently remarked, " he did 
not seem to be very thankful." 

Sober second thoughts, however, brought grati- 
tude with them. The Britisher never forgot that 
Roosevelt had saved his life, and Roosevelt never 
forgot the picture that a son of a lord made, dragged 
through the water at the end of a lasso. 

On June 5th, which must have been the day 
after the rescue of the Englishman, Roosevelt 
was writing to Lodge. 

A cowboy from " down river " has just come up to 
the round-up, and brought me my mail, with your letter 
in it. I am writing on the ground; so my naturally 
good handwriting will not show to its usual advantage. 

I have been three weeks on the round-up and have 



A LETTER TO LODGE 299 

worked as hard as any of the cowboys; but I have 
enjoyed it greatly. Yesterday I was eighteen hours in 
the saddle — from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. — having a half- 
hour each for dinner and tea. I can now do cowboy 
work pretty well. 

Toronto ^ must be a dandy; I wish I could pick up 
one as good. That is, if he is gentle. You are all off 
about my horsemanship; as you would say if you saw 
me now. Almost all of our horses on the ranch being 
young, I had to include in my string three that were 
but partially broken ; and I have had some fine circuses 
with them. One of them had never been saddled but 
once before, and he proved vicious, and besides bucking, 
kept falling over backwards with me; finally he caught 
me, giving me an awful slat, from which my left arm 
has by no means recovered. Another bucked me off 
going down hill; but I think I have cured him, for I 
put him through a desperate course of sprouts when I 
got on again. The third I nearly lost in swimming him 
across a swollen creek, where the flood had carried down 
a good deal of drift timber. However, I got him through 
all right in the end, after a regular ducking. Twice 
one of my old horses turned a somersault while galloping 
after cattle; once in a prairie-dog town, and once while 
trying to prevent the herd from stampeding in a storm 
at night. I tell you, I like gentle and well-broken horses 
if I am out for pleasure, and I do not get on any other, 
unless, as in this case, from sheer necessity. 

It is too bad that letters cannot be published with 
stage directions. For surely the words, " I like 
gentle and well-broken horses,** should bear about 
them somewhere the suggestion of the glint of the 
eye, the flash of the teeth, the unctuous deliberate- 

* Toronto was the name of Lodge's hunter. 



300 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

ness, and the comical break in the voice with which, 
surely, Roosevelt whispered them to his soul before 
he wrote them down. 

While Roosevelt was enjoying adventures and 
misadventures of various sorts, Sylvane Ferris was 
having what he might have described as " a little 
party " of his own. For Sylvane, most honest and 
guileless of men, had got into the clutches of the 
law. It happened this way. 

Early in the spring some cowpunchers, driving 
in cattle which had strayed during the winter 
over the level country far to the east of the Little 
Missouri, came upon a cow marked with the maltese 
cross. They drove her westward with the rest of 
the " strays," but none of the men belonged to 
the " Roosevelt outfit " and their interest in this 
particular cow was therefore purely altruistic. She 
was not a particularly good cow, moreover, for she 
had had a calf in the winter and her udder had 
partially frozen. When, therefore, the necessity 
arose of paying board at the section-house at 
Gladstone after a few happy days at that metropolis, 
the cowboys, who did not have a cent of real money 
among them, hit upon the brilliant idea of offering 
the cow in payment. 

The section boss accepted the settlement, but 
evidently not without a sense of the consequences 
that might follow the discovery in his possession 
of a cow for which he could not present a bill of 
sale. He therefore promptly passed the cow on to 
a Russian cobbler in payment for a pair of shoes. 



SYLVANE'S ADVENTURE 301 

The cobbler, with the European peasant's uncanny 
ability to make something out of nothing, doctored 
the cow with a care which he would not have 
dreamed of bestowing on his wife, and made a 
profitable milk-provider out of her. 

Sylvane discovered her during the round-up, 
picketed outside the Russian's shack, and promptly 
proceeded to take possession of her. The Russian 
protested and told his story. Sylvane, pointing out 
that he was moved by charity and not by necessity, 
offered the man six dollars, which had been the 
price of the shoes. The Russian threw up his hands 
and demanded no less than forty. Sylvane shrugged 
his shoulders and annexed the cow. 

That evening as Sylvane was sitting around the 
mess-wagon with a dozen other cowpunchers, a 
stranger came walking from the direction of Glad- 
stone. The cow was hitched to the wagon, for she 
had shown a tendency to choose her own master. 
The stranger started to detach the rope that held 
her. 

*' Hold on ! " cried Sylvane, " that is our cow." 

The stranger took some papers out of his pocket 
and handed them to Sylvane. 

" Here are replevin papers," he said. 

" I don't want your papers," remarked Sylvane, 
who did not know a replevin paper from a dog 
license. 

The stranger threw the papers at Sylvane's feet. 

"I've come to take this cow." 

"Well." remarked Sylvane, "if thafs all the 



302 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

business you have, you can go straight back where 
you came from." 

The stranger strode toward the cow, Sylvane 
did likewise. They reached the rope at the same 
moment. There was a shout from the deHghted 
audience of cowpunchers. 

The stranger released his hold on the rope. " If 
you say I can't take her, I can't take her," the man 
grumbled. " There's too many of you. But I'll 
bring back men that can." 

" Well, turn yourself loose," remarked Sylvane 
agreeably. " You'll need a lot of them." 

There was another shout from the onlookers, and 
the stranger departed. Sylvane threw the papers 
into the mess-wagon. 

Roosevelt did not happen to be present, and in 
his absence the sober counsel of " Deacon " Cum- 
mins made itself heard. The gist of it was that 
Sylvane had resisted an officer of the law, which 
was a criminal offense. 

Sylvane, who was afraid of nothing that walked 
on two legs or on four, had a wholesome respect for 
that vague and ominous thing known as the Law. 

" Say, I don't want to get in bad with any sheriff," 
he said, really worried. ** What had I oughter do? " 

The " Deacon," who possibly rejoiced at being 
for once taken seriously, suggested that Sylvane 
ride to Gladstone and see if he could not straighten 
the matter out. The other cowpunchers, whose 
acquaintance with legal procedure was as vague as 
Sylvane's, agreed that that plan sounded reason- 



LAW 303 

able. Sylvane went, accompanied by the " Dea- 
con " and another cowboy. If there was a gleam of 
wicked triumph in the stranger's eye when Sylvane 
rode up to him, Sylvane failed to notice it. Before 
a justice of the peace he agreed to appear in court 
on a certain date, and his two companions furnished 
a bond. 

Next day, while they were in camp on the Heart 
River, an acquaintance of Sylvane's, a law>er who 
rejoiced in the harmonious name of Western Starr, 
rode in from Dickinson to have dinner with " the 
boys." Sylvane showed him the papers the stranger 
had deposited at his feet. 

The lawyer glanced over them. " What are 
these? " he asked. 

"I don't know," answered Sylvane lightly. 
" That's what I handed them to you for, to find out." 

" Why," exclaimed Starr, " these aren't any- 
thing. They haven't been signed by anybody." 

Sylvane's jaw dropped. " Say, how about my 
bond? " 

" Oh, that's valid, even if these are not. You've 
got to appear in court." 

Sylvane's feelings concerning the " Deacon " and 
his precious advice were deep and earnest. The sit- 
uation was serious. He knew well enough the chance 
that the "outfit" of a wealthy Easterner like Roose- 
velt would stand with a Gladstone jury, when it 
was a question of depriving a poor man of his cow. 

Western Starr suggested that he arrange for a 
change of venue. 



304 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Sylvane approved. The change of venue cost 
ten dollars, but was granted. The date of the trial 
was set. Sylvane traveled to Dickinson and waited 
all day with his attorney for the trial to be called. 
No one appeared, not even the judge. 

Starr's fee was twenty dollars. Sylvane's railroad 
fare was five more. The total bill was thirty-five. 

Roosevelt paid the bill. If he remarked that, 
taking lost tim.e into consideration, it would have 
been cheaper, in the first place, to pay the Russian 
the forty dollars he demanded, there is no record 
of it. But the remark would not have been charac- 
teristic. The chances are that he thought Sylvane's 
encounter with the law worth every cent that it 
cost. 



XVIII 

Somewhere on some faded page 
I read about a Golden Age, 
But gods and Caledonian hunts 
Were nothing to what I knew once. 
Here on these hills was hunting! Here 
Antelope sprang and wary deer. 
Here there were heroes! On these plains 
Were drops afire from dragons' veins! 
Here there was challenge, here defying, 
Here was true living, here great dying! 
Stormy winds and stormy souls. 
Earthly wills with starry goals, 
Battle — thunder — hoofs in flight — 
Centaurs charging down the night ! 

Here there were feasts of song and story 

And words of love and dreams of glory! 

Here there were friends! Ah, night will fall 

And clouds or the stars will cover all, 

But I, when I go as a ghost again 

To the gaunt, grim buttes, to the friendly plain 

I know that for all that time can do 

To scatter the faithful, estrange the true — 

Quietly, in the lavender sage. 

Will be waiting the friends of my golden age. 

From Medora Nights 

The wild riding, the mishaps, the feverish activity, 
the smell of the cattle, the dust, the tumult, the 
physical weariness, the comradeship, the closeness 
to life and death — to Roosevelt it was all magical 
and enticing. He loved the crisp morning air, the 
fantastic landscape, the limitless spaces, half blue 
and half gold. His spirit was sensitive to beauty, 
especially the beauty that lay open for all in the 
warm light of dawn and dusk under the wide vault 
of heaven; and the experiences that were merely 

\ 



306 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the day's work to his companions to him were edged 
with the shimmer of spiritual adventure. 

" We knew toil and hardship and hunger and 
thirst," Roosevelt wrote thirty years later, " and 
we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among 
the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with 
one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in 
our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the 
joy of living." 

''It was a wonderful thing for Roosevelt," said 
Dr. Stickney. " He himself realized what a splendid 
thing it was for him to have been here at that time 
and to have had sufficient strength In his character 
to absorb it. He started out to get the fundamental 
truths as they ere in this country and he never 
lost sight of that purpose all the time he was here." 

To the joy of strenuous living was added, for 
Roosevelt, the satisfaction of knowing that the spec- 
ulation in which he had risked so large a part of his 
fortune was apparently prospering. The cattle were 
looking well. Even pessimistic Bill Sewall admitted 
that, though he would not admit that he had changed 
his opinion of the region as a place for raising cattle. 

I don't think we shall lose many of our cattle this 
winter [he wrote his brother]. I think they have got 
past the worst now. Next year is the one that will 
try them. It is the cows that perish mostly and we had 
but few that had calves last spring, but this spring 
thare will be quite a lot of them. The calves suck them 
down and they don't get any chance to gain up before 
they have another calf and then if the weather is very 
cold they are pretty sure to die. It is too cold here to 



SEWALL'S SKEPTICISM 307 

raise cattle that way. Don't believe there is any -money 
in she cattle here and am afraid thare is not much in 
any, unless it is the largest heards, and they are crowding 
in cattle all the time and I think they will eat us out in a 
few years. 

Sewall, being a strong individualist, was more than 
dubious concerning the practicality of the coopera- 
tive round-up. The cowmen were passionately de- 
voted to the idea of the open range; to believe in 
fences was treason; but it was in fences that Bill 
Sewall believed. 

I don't like so free a country [he wrote]. Whare one 
man has as good a right as another nobody really has 
any right, so when feed gets scarce in one place they 
drive their cattle whare it is good without regard to 
whose range they eat out. I am satisfied that by the time 
we are ready to leave grass will be pretty scarce here. 

I think the Cattle business has seen its best days and 
I gave my opinion to Mr. R, last fall. I hope he may not 
lose but I think he stands a chance. Shall do all we can 
to prevent it, but it is such a mixed business. One or 
two can't do much. It is the most like driving on the 
Lake when you are mixed with everybody. I don't like 
it and never did. I want to controle and manage my 
own affairs and have a right to what I have, but here as 
on the Lake it is all common. One has as much right as 
another. 

Roosevelt remained with the round-up until it 
disbanded not far from Elkhorn Bottom. Then, on 
June 2 1 St, he went East, accompanied by Wilmot 
Dow, who was going home to get married and bring 
Sewall's wife back with him when he brought back 
his own. 



308 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Two reporters intercepted Roosevelt as he passed 
through St. Paul the day after his departure from 
Medora, and have left an attractive picture of the 
politician-turned-cowboy. 

Rugged, bronzed, and in the prime of health [wrote 
the representative of the Pioneer Press], Theodore 
Roosevelt passed through St. Paul yesterday, returning 
from his Dakota ranch to New York and civilization. 
There was very little of the whilom dude in his rough 
and easy costume, with a large handkerchief tied loosely 
about his neck; but the eyeglasses and the flashing eyes 
behind them, the pleasant smile and the hearty grasp 
of hand remained. There was the same eagerness to 
hear from the world of politics, and the same frank 
willingness to answer all questions propounded. The 
slow, exasperating drawl and the unique accent that 
the New Yorker feels he must use when visiting a less 
blessed portion of civilization have disappeared, and in 
their place is a nervous, energetic manner of talking 
with the flat accent of the West. Roosevelt is changed 
from the New York club man to the thorough West- 
erner, but the change is only in surface indications, 
and he is the same thoroughly good fellow he has always 
been. 

The reporter of the Dispatch caught him in the 
lobby of the Merchant's Hotel. 

" I'm just in from my ranch," he said [runs the inter- 
view]. "Haven't had my dinner yet, but I think a 
short talk with a newspaper fellow will give me a whetted 
appetite. Yes, I am a regular cowboy, dress and all — " 
and his garb went far to prove his assertion, woolen 
shirt, big neck handkerchief tied loosely around his 
neck, etc. " I am as much of a cowboy as any of them 
and Can hold my own with the best of them. I can 



INTERVIEW AT ST. PAUL 309 

shoot, ride, and drive in the round-up with the best of 
them. Oh, they are a jolly set of fellows, those cowboys; 
tiptop good fellows, too, when you know them, but 
they don't want any plug hat or pointed shoes foolish- 
ness around them. I get along the best way with them. 
" We have just finished the spring round-up. You 
know what that means. The round-up covered about 
two hundred miles of grass territory along the river, 
and thousands of cattle were brought in. It is rare 
sport, but hard work after all. Do I like ranch life? 
Honestly I would not go back to New York if I had no 
interests there. Yes, I enjoy ranch life far more than 
city life. I like the hunt, the drive of cattle, and every- 
thing that is comprehended in frontier life. Make no 
mistake; on the frontier you find the noblest of fellows. 
How many cattle have I ? Let's see, well, not less than 
3500 at present. I will have more another year." 

The man from the Dispatch wanted to talk politics, 
but beyond a few general remarks Roosevelt refused 
to satisfy him. 

" Don't ask me to talk politics," he said. " I am 
out of politics. I know that this is often said by 
men in public life, but in this case it is true. I 
really am. There is more excitement in the round-up 
than in politics. And," he remarked with zest, 
" it is far more respectable. I prefer my ranch 
and the excitement it brings, to New York life," 
he repeated; then, lest he should seem to suggest 
the faintest hint of discontent, he hastened to add, 
" though I always make it a point to enjoy myself 
wherever I am." 

Roosevelt spent two months in the East. On 
August 23d he was again in St. Paul on his way, 



310 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

as he told a reporter of the Dispatch, to Helena, 
Montana, and thence back to Medora. Once more 
the interviewer sought his views on political ques- 
tions. Roosevelt made a few non-committal state- 
ments, refusing to prophesy. " My political life," 
he remarked, " has not altogether killed my desire 
to tell the truth." And with that happily flippant 
declaration he was off into the wilderness again. 

The " womenfolks " from Maine were at Elkhorn 
when Roosevelt arrived. They w^ere backwoods- 
women, self-reliant, fearless, high-hearted; true 
mates to their stalwart men. Mrs. Sewall had 
brought her three-year-old daughter with her. 
Before Roosevelt knew what was happenings they 
had turned the new house into a new home. 

And now for them all began a season of deep and 
quiet contentment that was to remain in the mem- 
ories of all of them as a kind of idyl. It was a life 
of elemental toil, hardship, and danger, and of 
strong, elemental pleasures — rest after labor, food 
after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter cold. 
In that life there was no room for distinctions of 
social position or wealth. They respected one an- 
other and cared for one another because and only 
because each knew that the others were brave and 
loyal and steadfast. 

Life on the ranch proved a more joyous thing 
than ever after the women had taken charge. They 
demanded certain necessities at once. They de- 
manded chickens, which Roosevelt supplied, to the 
delight of the bobcats, who promptly started to 




ELKHORN RANCH-HOUSE 
Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 




SITE OF ELKHORN, I919 



I 



THE WOMEN-FOLKS 311 

feast on them; they demanded at least one cow. No 
one had thought of a cow. No one in the length 
and breadth of that cattle country, except Mrs. 
Roberts, seemed to think it worth while to keep a 
cow for the milk that was in her, and all the cows 
were wild as antelope. Roosevelt and Sewall and 
Dow among them roped one on the range and 
threw her, and sat on her, and milked her upside 
down, which was not altogether satisfactory-, but 
was, for the time being, the best thing they 
could do. 

Meals became an altogether different matter from 
what they had been at the Maltese Cross where 
men were kings of the kitchen. " Eating, was a 
sort of happy-go-lucky business at the Maltese 
Cross," remarked Bill Sewall subsequently. " You 
were happy if you got something, an' you were 
lucky too." There was now a new charm in shoot- 
ing game, with women at home to cook it. And 
Mrs. Sewall baked bread that was not at all like 
the bread Bill baked. Soon she was even baking 
cake, which was an unheard-of luxury in the Bad 
Lands. Then, after a while, the buffalo berries 
and wild plums began to disappear from the bushes 
roundabout and appear on the table as jam. 

" However big you build the house, it won't be 
big enough for two women," pessimists had re- 
marked. But their forebodings were not realized. 
At Elkhorn no cross word was heard. They were, 
taken altogether, a very happy family. Roosevelt 
was "the boss" in the sense that, since he footed 



312 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the bills, power of final decision was his; but only 
in that sense. He saddled his own horse; now and 
then he washed his own clothes; he fed the pigs; 
and once, on a rainy day, he blacked the Sunday 
boots of every man, woman, and child in the place. 
He was not encouraged to repeat that performance. 
The folks from Maine made it quite clear that if 
the boots needed blacking at all, which was doubt- 
ful, they thought some one else ought to do the 
blacking — not at all because it seemed to them 
improper that Roosevelt should black anybody's 
boots, but because he did it so badly. The_ paste 
came off on everything it touched. The women 
" mothered " him, setting his belongings to rights 
at stated intervals, for he was not conspicuous for 
orderliness. He, in turn, treated the women with 
the friendliness and respect he showed to the 
women of his own family. And the little Bewail 
girl was never short of toys. 

Elkhorn Ranch was a joyous place those days. 
Cowboys, hearing of it, came from a distance for 
a touch of home life and the luxury of hearing a 
woman's voice. 

Roosevelt's days were full of diverse activities, 
and the men who worked with him at Elkhorn were 
the pleasantest sort of companions. Bill Sewall, 
who, as Sylvane described him, was " like a track- 
hound on the deer- trail," had long ago given up 
the idea of making a cowboy of himself, constituting 
himself general superintendent of the house and its 
environs and guardian of the womenfolks. Not that 



THE ELKHORN OUTFIT 313 

the women needed protection. There was doubtless 
no safer place for women in the United States at 
that moment than the Bad Lands of the Little 
Missouri; and Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Dow could 
have been counted on to handle firearms as fear- 
lessly if not as accurately as Bill himself. But 
Bill tended the famished, unhappy-looking potato- 
patch for them, and with characteristic cheerfulness 
did the other chores, being quite content to leave 
to Roosevelt and Dow and another young cow- 
puncher named Rowe the riding of '' sunfishers " 
and such things. He had a level head and an equa- 
ble temper, and the cowpunchers all liked him. 
When a drunken cowboy, who had been a colonel 
in the Confederate army, accosted him one day in 
Joe Ferris's store with the object apparently of 
starting a fight, it was Sewall's quiet good nature 
that made his efforts abortive. 

" You're a damned pleasant-looking man," ex- 
claimed the Southerner. 

Sewall smiled at him. " I am," he said. " You 
can't find a pleasanter man anywhere round.'* 
Which was the essential truth about Bill Sewall. 

Of all Roosevelt's friends up and down the river, 
Sewall's nephew, Will Dow, was possibly the one 
who had the rarest qualities of intellect and spirit. 
He had a poise and a winsome lovableness that was 
not often found in that wild bit of country combined 
with such ruggedness of character. He had a droll 
and altogether original sense of humor, and an 
imagination which struck Roosevelt as extraordinary 



314 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

in Its scope and power and which disported itself 
in the building of delightful yarns. 

" He was always a companion that was sought 
wherever he went," said Bill Sewall. " There are 
men who have the faculty of pleasing and creating 
mirth and he was one of that kind." 

Rowt was a different sort, of coarser fiber, but 
himself not without charm. He was a natural 
horseman, fearless to recklessness, an excellent 
worker, and a fighting man with a curious streak 
of gentleness in him that revolted against the 
cruelty of the branding-iron. Most men accepted 
the custom of branding cattle and horses as a 
matter of course. There was, in fact, nothing to 
do save accept it, for there was no other method 
of indicating the ownership of animals which could 
be reasonably relied on to defy the ingenuity of 
the thieves. Attempts to create opinion against it 
wfere regarded as sentimental and pernicious and 
were suppressed vnth vigor. ^ 

But Rowe had plenty of courage. " Branding 
cattle is rotten," he insisted, in season and out of 
season; adding on one occasion to a group of cow- 
punchers standing about a fire with branding-irons 
in their hands, " and you who do the branding are 
all going to hell." 

" Aw," exclaimed a cowboy, " there ain't no 
hell!" 

" You watch," Rowfe retorted. " You'll get there 
and burn just as that there cow." 

In comparison to the lowfer reaches of the Little 



THE WADSWORTHS' DOG '315 

Missouri w'here Elkhorn Ranch was situated, the 
country about the Maltese Cross was densely 
populated. Howard Eaton, eight or ten miles away 
on Beaver Creek, was Elkhorn's closest neighbor 
to the north; " Farmer " Young, the only man in 
the Bad Lands who had as yet attacked the problem 
of agriculture in that region, was the nearest neigh- 
bor to the south. Six or eight miles beyond Farmer 
Young lived some people named Wadsworth. 

W'adsworth was an unsocial being whom no one 
greatly liked. He had been the first man to bring 
cattle into the Bad Lands, and it was some of his 
cattle, held by Ferris and Merrifield on shares, 
which Roosevelt had bought in the autumn of 1883. 

Roosevelt's first call on Mrs. Wadsworth had its 
serio-comic aspects. The Wadsworths had a great 
wolf-hound whom Roosevelt himself described as 
" a most ill-favored hybrid, whose mother was a 
Newfoundland and whose father was a large wolf," 
and which looked, it seemed, more like a hyena 
than like either of its parents. The dog both barked 
and howled, but it had a disconcerting habit of 
doing neither when it was on business bent. The 
first intimation Roosevelt had of its existence one 
day, as he was knocking at the door of the Wads- 
worth cabin, was a rush that the animal made for 
his trousers. 

Pete Pellessier, a round-faced, genial cowpuncher 
from Texas, subsequently told about it. " It was 
one of those dogs that come sneaking around, 
never a growl or anything else — just grab a hunk 



3i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

of your leg to let you know they're around. That's 
the kind of a dog this was. Roosevelt just started 
to make a bow to Mrs. \\'adsworth, 'wa^' over, real 
nice. Well, that dog flew and grabbed him in the 
seat of the pants — he had on corduroy pants. 

" ' Get out of here, you son-of-a-gun ! ' he says; 
' get out of here, I tell you ! ' 

" Then he turns to Mrs. Wadsworth. * I beg your 
pardon, Mrs. Wadsworth,' he says politely, ' that 
dog was grabbing me an' — ' 

" Just then the dog reached for another helping. 
* Get out of here!' Roosevelt shouts to the dog, and 
then turns back, ' How do you do? ' he says to Mrs. 
Wadsworth. But the dog came back a third time, 
and that time Roosevelt gave that wolf-hound a 
kick that landed him about ten rods off. An' 
Roosevelt went on with his visiting." 

It was a free and joyous life that Roosevelt 
lived with his warm-hearted companions at Elkhom 
those late summer days of 1885. Now and then, 
when work was done, he would sit on the porch for 
an hour or two at a time, watching the cattle on 
the sand-bars, '' while," as he wrote subsequently, 
" the vultures wheeled overhead, their black 
shadows gliding across the glaring white of the 
dr>' river-bed." Often he would sink into his 
rocking-chair, grimy and hot after the day's work, 
and read Keats and Swinburne for the contrast 
their sensuous music offered to the vigorous realities 
about him; or, forgetting books, he would just 
rock back and forth, looking sleepily out across the 



DUSK AT ELKHORN 317 

river while the scarlet crests of the buttes softened 
to rose and then to lavender, and lavender gave 
place to shadowy gray, and gray gave place to the 
luminous purple of night. The leaves of the cotton- 
wood trees before the house were never still, and 
often the cooing of mourning doves would come 
down to him from some high bough. He heard 
the thrush in the thicket near by, and in the distance 
the clanging cries of the water-fowl. He knew the 
note of every bird, and they were like friends calling 
to him. 



XIX 

We're the children of the open and we hate the haunts o' men, 

But we had to come to town to get the mail. 
And we're ridin' home at daybreak — 'cause the air is cooler then — 

All 'cept one of us that stopped behind in jail. 
Shorty's nose won't bear paradin', Bill's off eye is darkly fadin', 

All our toilets show a touch of disarray; 
For we found that City life is a constant round of strife, 

And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray. 

Chant your war-whoops, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with 
fear, 
And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun'; 
For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror. 
When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town! 

Badger Clark 

Meanwhile, as the months passed by, Medora 
was growing, and stretching itself. Even the Man- 
dan Pioneer, a hundred and fifty miles to the east, 
thought it worth its while to brag about it. 

Medora is distinctively a cattle town [runs the com- 
ment], and is ambitious to be the cattle market of the 
Northwest. In two years it has grown from absolutely 
nothing to be a town which possesses a number of fine 
buildings, and represents a great many dollars of capital. 
The Black Hills freight depot is a well-built, substantial 
building. A number of brick houses have been built 
during the last year, including a very neat and attractive 
Catholic church, and a large hotel. 

The Pioneer did not see fit to say that most of 
the " fine buildings " had been built by one man 
and that on the slender reed of that man's business 
acumen the prosperity of the whole community 



MEDORA 319 

rested. To have done so would possibly have 
seemed like looking a gift-horse in the mouth. And 
Medora's prosperity appeared solid enough, in 'all 
conscience. Things were, in fact, humming. There 
was now a clothing store in town, a drug store, a 
hardware store, a barber shop. Backed by Roose- 
velt, Joe Ferris had erected a two-story structure 
on the eastern bank and moved his store from Little 
Missouri to be an active rival of the Marquis's 
company store. A school was built (by whom and 
with what funds remains mysterious) and Bill 
Dantz was made Superintendent of Education; 
and next to Joe's store, opposite the office of the 
Bad Lands Cowboy, Fisher laid the beginnings of 
Medora's Great White Way with a roller-skating 
pavilion, where the cowboys who drifted into town, 
drunk or sober, exhibited their skill to the hilarious 
delight of their friends. 

But the architectural monuments in which 
Medora's opulence most vigorously expressed itself 
were the saloons. The number of these varied, 
according to the season. Sometimes there were a 
dozen, sometimes there were more, for no one 
bothered about a license and any one with ten 
dollars and a jug of rum could start his own " liquor 
parlor." 

Among the saloons Bill Williams's stood in a class 
by itself. He, too, had followed civilization to 
Medora, establishing himself first in a small building 
near Joe's store, and, when that burnt down, in 
an imposing two-story frame structure which the 



320 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Marquis de Mores built for him. The bar-room was 
on the first floor and above it was a huge hall which 
was used for public meetings and occasionally for 
dances. The relation of the dance-hall to the bar- 
room had its disadvantages, especially when the 
shooting began. The bar-room itself wias a sumptu- 
ous affair, for Williams had the shrewdness to know 
that it was not only rum that the lonely cowpuncher 
sought when he pushed in the swinging doors. The 
place Vas never closed, night or day, and the faro 
wheel was seldom silent. 

The other saloons could not compete with the 
gorgeousness with which Bill Williams edged the 
cloud of robbery and ruin that hung about his 
iniquitous saloon; when they seemed for a night to 
compete, drawing to their own hospitable bars the 
cowpunchers whom Williams looked upon as his 
own legitimate pre^^ he had a way of standing at 
his door and shooting indiscriminately into the 
night. Out of a dozen rum-shops would pour 
excited cowboys eager to know " what the shooting 
was about," and as they crowded inquisitively 
about his bar, trade would once more become brisk 
in Bill Williams's saloon. 

Bill Williams was a bona-fide " bad man." So 
also was Maunders. But they were of Medora's 
hundred-odd permanent inhabitants during that 
summer of 1885, the only ones who might with 
complete fidelity to facts have been so designated. 
Others blew in and blew out again, creating a little 
disturbance and drifting west. The great majority 




HELL-ROARING BILL JONES 




BILL WILLIAMS'S SALOON 
(1919) 



STYLES IN THE BAD LANDS 321 

of Medora's noisy population were merely light- 
hearted youngsters who had not yet outgrown their 
love for fire-crackers. 

Under the title " Styles in the Bad Lands," the 
Dickinson Press reprinted certain " fashion notes " 
from the columns of an enterprising contemporary: 

The Estelline (Dak.) Bell has been at some trouble 
to collect the following latest fashion notes for the 
benefit of its Bad Lands readers: The " gun " is still 
worn on the right hip, slightly lower down than formerly. 
This makes it more convenient to get at during a dis- 
cussion with a friend. The regular " forty-five " still 
remains a favorite. Some affect a smaller caliber, but 
it is looked upon as slightly dudish. A " forty," for 
instance, may induce a more artistic opening in an ad- 
versary, but the general effect and mortality is impaired. 
The plug of tobacco is still worn in the pocket on the 
opposite side from the shooter, so when reaching for 
the former, friends will not misinterpret the move and 
subsequently be present at your funeral. It is no longer 
considered necessary to wait for introductions before 
proceeding to get the drop. There will be time enough 
for the mere outward formalities of politeness at the 
inquest. The trimming of the " iron " is still classic 
and severe, only a row of six cartridges grouped around 
the central barrel being admissible. Self-cockers are 
now the only style seen in the best circles.^ Much of 
the effectiveness of the gun was formerly destroyed by 
having to thumb up the hammer, especially when the 
person with whom you were conversing wore the self- 

1 "Whoever wrote that was badly off his base. The simon-pure 
cowpuncher would not accept a self-cocker as a gift. They laughed at 
them in fact. Once, on a bet, a cowpuncher shot off all six shots with 
his single-action Colt. 45 while his opponent was getting off three with 
his self-cocker." — Lincoln Lang. 



322 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

cocking variety. It has been found that on such occa- 
sions the old-style gun was but little used except in the 
way of circumstantial evidence at the inquest. Shooting 
from the belt without drawing is considered hardly the 
thing among gentlemen who do not wish to be considered 
as attempting to attract notice. In cases where the 
gentleman with whom you are holding a joint debate 
already has the drop, his navy six having a hair trigger, 
and he being bound to shoot, anyway, this style of dis- 
cussion is allowable, though apt to cause a coldness to 
spring up. As regards the number of guns which it is 
admissible to wear, great latitude is allowed, from one 
up to four being noted on the street and at social gather- 
ings. One or two is generally considered enough, except 
where a sheriff with a reputation of usually getting his 
man and a Winchester rifle is after you, when we cannot 
too strongly impress upon the mind of the reader the 
absolute necessity for going well heeled. 

In Medora in those midsummer days of 1885, 
Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was the life of every party. 
Wherever there was deviltry, there was Bill Jones, 
profane and obscene beyond description, but irre- 
sistibly comical. He was as lean and muscular as 
John Falstafif was short and fat, but the divergences 
between the genial old reprobate of Eastcheap and 
the saturnine, but by no means unlovable, rap- 
scallion of Medora were less striking than the 
qualities they had in common. He had good friends, 
none better than the gay, infinitely pathetic patri- 
cian's son. Van Zander, who played Prince Hal to 
him, light-heartedly flipping a fortune in the air as 
others, essentially less admirable, might have flipped 
a dollar. 



THE COMING OF LAW 323 

" Deacon " Cummins thought Bill Jones dread- 
ful, which naturally incited Bill Jones always to 
do the worst that was in him to do whenever the 
" Deacon " was within earshot. He found delight 
in drawing up beside him on the round-up and 
pouring forth every evil tale he knew. 

" Jones, I don't know why you tell those stories 
when I'm around," the " Deacon " would exclaim, 
not without pathos. " You know I don't like them." 

After his first encounter with Roosevelt in the 
office of the Bad Lands Cowboy, Bill Jones told him 
no foul stories. The contrast between Bill Jones's 
attitude toward a virtuous man who was strong and 
a virtuous man who was weak might furnish a 
theme for many sermons. 

The antics of Saturday nights were many and 
some of them were explosive, but on the ^whole men 
looked more tolerantly on the shackles of civilization 
in Medora in 1885 than they had in 1884. The vig- 
ilantes' raid had undoubtedly chased the fear of 
God into the hearts of the evil-doers. 

Whatever can be said against the methods adopted 
by the " stranglers " who came through here last fall 
[remarked the Bad Lands Cowboy], it cannot but be 
acknowledged that the result of their work has been 
very wholesome. Not a definite case of horse-stealing 
from a cowman has been reported since, and it seems 
as though a very thorough clean-up had been made. 

The ranch-owners, evidently, did not find the sit- 
uation as satisfactory as Packard found it, for in 
July the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Associa- 



324 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

tion, of which Roosevelt was chairman, determined 
to organize a posse to "clean up " the country north 
of the railroad between the Missouri and the Little 
Missouri rivers. Osterhaut, captain of the round- 
up, was appointed leader and half a dozen ranch- 
men contributed a cowboy apiece. Roosevelt sent 
Sewall as his representative. 

The route was through about as wild and unsettled 
a portion of the country as can be found now, so the 
people here say [Sewall wrote his brother on his return], 
and the oldest heads seemed to think thare might be 
some danger, but we saw nothing worse than ourselves. 

Once more, that August, Packard raised his 
voice in favor of the organization of the county, but 
once more mysterious forces blocked his efforts. 
Meanwhile, the Stockmen's Association was ex- 
erting a stabilizing influence that was as quiet as 
it was profound. No one talked about it, or thought 
much about it. But to evil-doers, it loomed un- 
comfortably in the background. Sometime during 
the year 1885, the Association voted to employ a 
stock inspector at Medora to examine the brands 
of all cattle shipped thence to Chicago. This was 
a distinct check to the thieves, and might have 
been checkmate, if the Association had not seen 
fit to appoint to the position the same Joe Morrill 
who as United States deputy marshal had already 
exhibited a tenderness toward the lawbreakers 
which was almost if not altogether criminal. What 
Roosevelt's attitude was to this appointment is 
not known; but he was under no illusions in regard 
to Morrill. 



THE PREACHERS 325 

Amid the tumult and excitement of life in Medora 
that summer of 1885, the consolations of organized 
religion were more inaccessible even than the services 
of an earthly physician, and there was no servant 
of Christ, of any creed or any denomination, who 
ministered to the men and women scattered through 
that wild region in a manner even remotely compar- 
able to the self-sacrificing devotion with which Dr. 
Stickney ministered to them. That excellent dis- 
ciple of the Lord doctored broken spirits even as 
he doctored broken bodies. The essentials of re- 
ligion, which are love and service, he gave with 
both hands from a full heart; the " trimmings " 
he left to the parsons. 

These " trimmings " were, it seemed, the only 
things which the few professional men of God who 
drifted into Medora were able to contribute. With 
the exception of the Roman Catholic chapel, 
erected by the Marquise de Mores as a thank- 
offering after the birth of her two children, there 
was no church of any denomination in Little Mis- 
souri or Medora, or, in fact, anywhere in Billings 
County; and in the chapel there were services not 
more than once or twice a month. Occasionally 
an itinerant Methodist or Baptist, whom no one 
knew anything about, blew in from anywhere, 
and blew out again; and if he was seen no more 
there were no lamentations.^ Services of a sort 

^ The Dickinson Press burst into verse in describing the exploits 
of one of the preachers. 

"Of a gospel preacher we now will tell 
Who started from Glendive to save souls from hell. 



326 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

were held in the " depot," in one of the stores or 
in the dance-hall over Bill Williams's saloon, but 
attendance was scanty. 

The inhabitants of the Bad Lands did not greatly 
feel the need of spiritual instruction, and were 
inclined to seek consolation, when they needed 
it, in " Forty-Mile Red-Eye " rather than in the- 
ology. 

" Anything or any one associated with religion 
or spiritual living was shunned," Bill Dantz ex- 
plained in after days, " religion being looked on as 
an institution for old women and weaklings. Such 
traveling evangelists and, later, regular pastors as 
came to the Northwest were treated with respect, 
but never came within miles of the intimacy or 
confidence of the cowboys. Such early congrega- 
tions as clustered about the pioneer churches were 
the newly arrived * nesters ' or homesteaders of 
the towns; the cowboys never. There could be 
no possible community of interests between book- 

At the Little Missouri he struck a new game, 
With the unregenerate, ' Honest John ' is its name. 

"He indulged too much in the flowing bowls, 
And forgot all about the saving of souls, 
But 'dropped' his three hundred, slept sweetly and well, 
And let the Little Missourians wander to 

that place whose main principles of political economy are 

brimstone and caloric." 

But the verses tell only half the story. As Sylvane Ferris relates it 
Bill Williams, conniving with Jess Hogue to fleece the preacher, gave 
him the impression that he too was losing heavily ; and actually shed 
tears. The preacher was heard to murmur, as he staggered into the 
night, "I don't mind losing my own money, but I am so sorry for 
that nice Mr. Williams." 



PACKARD'S PARSON 327 

learned men of sedentary profession and a half- 
tamed, open-range horseman." 

The reason, of course, was that the missionaries 
were fundamentally less honest and virtuous than 
the gay-hearted argonauts to whom they attempted 
to bring the gospel ; and their patient listeners, who 
had no illusions concerning their own piety, never- 
theless knew it. The preachers, moreover, were 
less than human. They preached interminable ser- 
mons. Discourses lasting an hour and a half were 
common, and even lengthier ones were not unusual. 
The parsons were hopelessly thick-skinned, more- 
over, and impervious to hints. When on one occa- 
sion, at which Sylvane was present, the congrega- 
tion began to consult their watches, the preacher, 
instead of bringing his sermon to a close, ex- 
claimed, " See here, you don't want to be lookin* 
at your watches. You don't hear a sermon often." 

One missionary, the representative of a certain 
Home Mission Society, came to Packard, saying 
that he wanted to start a church in Medora, and 
asking Packard for his moral support. Packard 
agreed that a church might be useful and secured 
the baggage-room at the " depot " for an audito- 
rium. The man held his first services, preaching 
an hour and a half. 

" See here," said Packard when the performance 
was over, " this won't do. You preach altogether 
too long." 

" Well," asked the preacher, " how long shall it 
be?" 



328 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" Your whole service oughtn't to be longer than 
your sermon was." 

The missionary it appeared, was eager to please. 
The following Sunday he preached three quarters 
of an hour. 

But Packard was still dissatisfied. " Cut it to 
fifteen minutes," he insisted. " You can say all 
you have to say in that time." 

The third Sunday the missionary did not appear. 
He had found it necessary to make a swift exit from 
his domicile, departing by one door as a sheriff 
entered by another. He had, it seems, knocked in 
the head of one of his parishioners with a hatchet. 

Experiences of this sort were not calculated to 
inspire respect for the clergy in the minds of the 
cowpunchers. 

" Them preachers," Sylvane subsequently re- 
marked, " broke us fellows from going to church." 

But though religion did not flourish in the alka- 
line soil of the Bad Lands, the fundamental Ameri- 
can principle of orderly government, based on the 
consent of the governed, slowly and with many 
setbacks took root. The town of Medora itself 
began to sober down. Joe Ferris was a rock of de- 
fense for law and order. In disputes, instead of 
clutching at the six-shooter, men began to turn to 
Joe as an arbitrator, knowing that he was honest 
and fair arid had a sense of humor. Packard, 
moreover, had established himself firmly in the 
respect and affection of his neighbors, and his 
reiterations, week after week and month after 



JOHNNY O'HARA 329 

month, of certain notions of order and decency, 
gradually began to have their effect. The Cowboy 
became the dominant factor in Medora's struggle 
toward maturity. 

From out of the blue ether and the whimsical 
generosity of Fate, meanwhile, had come an assistant 
for Packard who gave new zest to his adventure. 
His name was Johnny O'Hara, and Packard always 
insisted that he came as a gift from the gods. 

" In all literature there was only one like him," 
said Packard in after days, " and that was Kim. 
And Kim's name was O'Hara. As chela to Teshoo 
Lama, Kim acquired merit. As devil in the Bad 
Lands Cowboy office, Johnny acquired a place in 
my estimation only to be described in the beatitudes 
of an inspired writer. Kim went out with his 
begging-bowl and he and his Lama feasted bounte- 
ously. Johnny boarded passenger trains with an 
armful of the Cowboy and returned with enough 
money to pay current expenses. Kim played the 
great game with Strickland Sahib and attained 
rupees sufficient for a ride on the tee-rain. Johnny 
took the remains of a bunch of bananas I had 
ordered by express from St. Paul and sold them for 
enough to pay for the first and even a second one. 
Two banana feasts for nothing, plus a profit! Kim 
came from the top of Zam-Zanneh to his chelaship 
with Teshoo Lama. Johnny came from the top of 
Mount Olympus or the biggest butte in the Bad 
Lands to become my right hand. Blessed be the 
name of O'Hara, be it Kim or Johnny." 



330 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

They worked together, with Joe Ferris and Syl- 
vane and Merrifield and Gregor Lang and Howard 
Eaton, the soHd citizens, and Roosevelt, the aggres- 
sive champion of order, to estabhsh America in a 
patch of sagebrush wilderness. , 



XX 

Bill's head was full o' fire 

An' his gizzard full o' rum, 
An' the things he said wuz rich an' red 

An' rattled as they come. 

Dave wuz on his stummick, 

Readin' the news at his ease-like, 
When Bill comes, brave, sayin' what he'll do to Dave 

In words what could walk away, cheese-like. 

or Bill's fist wuz man-size 

Sure as any alive — 
But Dave, never squintin', turns over the printin' 

An' there wuz his Forty-five. 

Bill he chokes an' swallers. 

But Dave he's gentle an' mild. 
An' they talks together o' cows an' the weather. 

An' allows they is re-con-ciled. 

From Medora Nights 

Where, meanwhile, was the Marquis de Mores? 

A casual observer, during the spring of 1885, 
might have remarked that physically he was never 
long at any one place; but that metaphorically he 
was on the crest of the wave. The erection of the 
great abattoir, which had replaced the more primi- 
tive structure built in 1883, gave an impression 
of great prosperity. Actually, however, it was a 
symptom of failure. It had, in fact, been erected 
only because of the irremediable inefficiency of the 
original smaller structure. By the end of 1884 the 
Marquis had discovered that the slaughtering of 
twenty-five head of cattle a day could not, by 
the most painstaking application of '* business 



332 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

methods," be made profitable. It took more than 
butchers, the Marquis found, to operate a slaughter- 
house. An engine was needed and an engineer, a 
foreman, a bookkeeper, a hide-man, a tallow-man, a 
blood-man, a cooper, and a night-watchman. These 
men could easily take care of three or four hundred 
head a day, and they were required to take care 
only of twenty-five. 

The Marquis was not without executive ability. 
He had, since the preceding autumn, sought com- 
petent advisers, moreover, and followed their sug- 
gestions. Among other things, these advisers had 
told him that, owing to the unusual quality of the 
stem-cured grass in the Bad Lands, beef fit for 
market could be slaughtered as early as the first of 
June when beef commanded a high price. 

Accordingly, on June ist the new abattoir was 
opened. Every precaution against waste had, it 
seemed, been taken, and for fear lest the branch 
houses in Kansas City, Bismarck, and elsewhere 
should be unable to absorb the output of the slaugh- 
ter-house and interrupt its steady operation, the 
Marquis secured a building on West Jackson 
Street, Chicago, where the wholesale dealers in 
dressed beef had their stalls, with the purpose of 
there disposing of his surplus. 

A hundred head of cattle were slaughtered daily 
at the new abattoir. At last the plant was efficient. 
The Marquis had a right to congratulate himself. 
But unexpectedly a fresh obstacle to success ob- 
truded itself. The experts had been wrong; the 




HOTEL DE MORES 




THE ABATTOIR OF THE MARQUIS DE MORES 



DE MORES THE UNDAUNTED S2>3 

beef proved of poor quality. The branch houses 
disposed of it with difficulty, and the retail dealers 
in Chicago refused to buy. Although dressed beef 
was produced there in enormous quantities for 
Eastern markets, the local consumer had a prejudice 
against cold-storage meat. He did not like grass- 
fed beef, moreover. It was as good or better than 
corn-fed beef, but he was not accustomed to it, and 
would not change his habits even at a saving. 

It was a staggering blow, but the Marquis was 
a fighting man and he took it without wincing. 
Packard, discussing the situation with him one day, 
pointed out to him that the cattle could not pos- 
sibly be stall-fed before they were slaughtered as no 
cattle feed was raised short of the corn country, 
hundreds of miles to the south. 

The Marquis was not noticeably perturbed by 
this recital of an obvious fact. " I am arranging to 
buy up the hop crop of the Pacific coast," he 
answered calmly. "This I will sell to the Mil- 
waukee and St. Louis brewers on an agreement 
that they shall return to me all the resultant malt 
after their beer is made. This I will bring to Medora 
in tank cars. It is the most concentrated and fatten- 
ing food to be bought. I will cover the town site 
south of the track with individual feeding-pens; 
thousands of them. Not only can I hold fat cattle 
as long as I wish, but riwill feed cattle all the year 
round and always have enough to keep the abattoir 
running." 

There was something gorgeous in the Marquis's 



334 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

inability to know when he was beaten. His power 
of self-hypnotism was in fact, amazing, and the 
persistence with which he pursued new bubbles, in 
his efforts to escape from the devils which the old 
ones had hatched as they burst, had its attractive 
side. 

*' The Medora Stage and Forwarding Company," 
the Dickinson Press announced on May i6th, " is 
a total wreck." It was; and shortly after, Van 
Driesche, most admirable of valets and now the 
Marquis's private secretary, Went with " Johnny " 
Goodall, foreman of the Marquis's ranch, to Dead- 
wood to salvage what they could from the rocks. 

But two weeks later the Marquis had a new 
dream. The Press announced it; " The Marquis de 
Mores believes he has discovered kaoline, a clay 
from which the finest pottery is made, near the 
town of Medora." The inference is clear. If Me- 
dora could not rival Chicago, it might easily rival 
Sevres or Copenhagen. 

For all the Marquis's endeavors to outface 
fortune, however, and to win success somewhere, 
somehow, beyond this valley of a hundred failures, 
the Nemesis which every man creates out of his 
limitations was drawing her net slowly and irresist- 
ibly about him. He had no friends in Medora. His 
foreign ways and his alien attitude of mind kept 
him, no doubt against his own desires, outside the 
warm circle of that very human society. He was 
an aristocrat, and he did not understand the dem.o- 
cratic individualism of the men about him. " The 



GENEALOGY OF THE MARQUIS 335 

Marquis," as one of his associates later explained, 
" always had the idea of being the head of something 
or other, and tried to run everything he had any- 
thing to do with." 

The Marquis loved the Bad Lands; there was 
no question about that. '' I like this country," he 
said to J. W. Foley, who became his superintendent 
about this time, " because there is room to turn 
around without stepping on the feet of others." 
The trouble was, however, that with a man of the 
Marquis's qualities and limitations, the Desert of 
Sahara would scarcely have been wide enough and 
unsettled enough to keep him content with his own 
corner of it. He seemed fated to step on other 
people's toes, possibly because at bottom he did not 
greatly care if he did step on them when they got 
in the way. 

" De Mores," said Lincoln Lang, " seemed to 
think that some sort of divine right reposed in him 
to absorb the entire Little Missouri country and 
everything in it." 

He had king's blood in him. In fact, and the 
genealogy which he solemnly revealed to Foley 
reached into an antiquity staggeringly remote, and 
made Bourbons and Guelphs, Hohenzollerns and 
Hapsburgs appear by comparison as very shoddy 
parvenus. He claimed descent on the maternal side 
from Caius Mucins, who, as Livy relates, crossed 
the Tiber to slay King Porsena and killed the King's 
secretary by mistake, a piece of business so similar 
to certain actions of the man who claimed him for 



336 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

an ancestor as to lend some color to the claim. De 
Mores was related more or less nearly to the Orleans 
family which had never renounced what it regarded 
as its title to the throne of France; and he himself 
had his eye on a crown. Behind all his activities 
in the Bad Lands loomed a grandiose purpose. To 
one or two of his associates he revealed it. He would 
make a great fortune in America, he declared, then 
return to France and, with the glitter of his dollars 
about him, gain control of the French army and by 
a coup d'etat make himself King of France. 

It was a gorgeous piece of day-dreaming; but its 
fulfillment was, in those middle eighties, not beyond 
the border of the possible. 

As the only rival for leadership in the Bad Lands 
of this aspirant for a throne stood, by one of Fate's 
queerest whimsies, a man who also had his eye 
on one of the high places of this world. The Mar- 
quis de Mores was the leader, or if not the leader 
at least the protector, of the forces of reaction; 
Theodore Roosevelt was the leader of the forces of 
progress. They were both in the middle twenties, 
both aristocrats by birth, both fearless and adven- 
turous; but one believed in privilege and the other 
believed in equality of opportunity. 

" When it came to a show-down, the Marquis 
was always there," said Dr. Stickney, who watched 
the quiet struggle for supremacy with a philosophic 
eye, "but he had no judgment. You couldn't ex- 
pect it. He was brought up in the army. He was 
brought up in social circles that didn't develop 



ROOSEVELT AND THE MARQUIS 337 

judgment. He didn't know how to mix with the 
cowboys. When he did mix with any of them, it 
was always with the worst element. Now, when 
Roosevelt came to the Bad Lands he naturally 
attracted the better element among the cowboys, 
such men as the Ferrises and Merrifield, men of 
high character whose principles were good." 

And Packard said: " Roosevelt was the embodi- 
ment of the belief of obedience to the law and the 
right of the majority to change it. The Marquis 
was equally honest in his belief that he himself was 
the law and that he had a divine right to change 
the law as he wished." 

The conflict between the two forces in the com- 
munity was quiet but persistent. Roosevelt dined 
on occasion with the Marquis and the Marquis 
dined on occasion with Roosevelt; they discussed 
horsemanship and hunting and books; at the meet- 
ing of the Montana Stockgrowers' Association at 
Miles City in April, that year, the Marquis pro- 
posed Roosevelt for membership; on the surface, 
in fact, they got along together most amicably. 
But under the surface fires were burning. 

On one occasion, when Roosevelt and the Marquis 
were both in the East, Roosevelt sent a message 
to his sister " Bamie," with whom he was living, 
telling her that he had invited the Marquis and his 
wife to dinner that evening. The message that 
came back from " Bamie " was, in substance, as 
follows: " By all m.eans bring them. But please 
let me know beforehand whether you and the Mar- 



338 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

quis are on friendly terms at the moment or are 
likely to spring at each other's throat." 

" Theodore did not care for the Marquis," said 
" Bamie " in later years, " but he was sorry for his 
wife and was constantly helping the Marquis out 
of the scrapes he was forever getting into with the 
other cattlemen." 

There were many reasons why the relations be- 
tween the two men should not have been notice- 
ably cordial. Roosevelt had from the start thrown 
in his lot with the men who had been most empha- 
tic in their denunciation of the Marquis's part in 
the killing of Riley Luffsey. Gregor Lang, who was 
the Marquis's most caustic critic, was Roosevelt's 
warm friend. " Dutch Wannigan," moreover, who 
had been saved only by a miracle in the memor- 
able ambuscade, was one of Roosevelt's cow-hands. 
That summer of 1885 he was night-herder for the 
Maltese Cross " outfit." He was a genial soul and 
Roosevelt liked him. No doubt he was fascinated 
also by his remarkable memory, for " Wannigan," 
who was unable to read or write, could be sent to 
town with a verbal order for fifty items, and could 
be counted on not only to bring every article he had 
been sent for, but to give an exact accounting, item 
by item, of every penny he had spent. For the 
Marquis the presence of " Dutch Wannigan " In 
Roosevelt's " outfit " was, no doubt, convincing 
evidence of Roosevelt's own attitude in regard to 
the memorable affray of June 26th, 1883. Whatever 
irritation he may have felt toward Roosevelt be- 



HOSTILITY 339 

cause of it could scarcely have been mollified by 
the fact that " Dutch Wannigan," in his quiet way, 
was moving heaven and earth to bring about the 
indictment of the Marquis for murder. 

But there was another reason why the relations 
between the Marquis and Roosevelt were strained. 
In the Marquis's business ventures he was con- 
stantly being confronted by unexpected and, in a 
sense, unaccountable obstacles, that rose suddenly 
out of what appeared a clear road, and thwarted 
his plans. The railroads, which gave special rates 
to shippers who did far less business than he, found 
for one reason or another that they could not give 
him any rebate at all. Wholesale dealers refused, 
for reasons which remained mysterious, to handle 
his meat; yard-men at Important junctions delayed 
his cars. He could not help but be conscious that 
principalities and powers that he could not Identify 
were working In the dark against him. He suspected 
that the meat-packers of Chicago had passed the 
word to their allies In Wall Street that he was to 
be destroyed; and assumed that Roosevelt, bound 
by a dozen ties to the leaders In the business life 
of New York, was In league with his enemies. 

A totally unexpected Incident brought the grow- 
ing friction between the two men for a flash Into 
the open. Roosevelt had agreed to sell the Marquis 
eighty or a hundred head of cattle at a price, on 
which they agreed, of about six cents a pound. 
Accompanied by two of his cowpunchers, he drove 
the cattle to the enclosure adjoining the abattoir 



340 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

of the Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car Company, 
had them weighed, and went to the Marquis for 
his check. 

" I am sorry I cannot pay you as much as I 
agreed for those cattle," said the Marquis. 

" But you bought the cattle," Roosevelt pro- 
tested. " The sale was complete with the delivery." 
" The Chicago price is down a half cent," an- 
swered the Marquis regretfully. " I \\ill pay you 
a half cent less than we agreed." 

The air was electric. Packard told about it long 
afterwards. " It was a ticklish situation," he said. 
" We all knew the price had been agreed on the day 
before; the sale being completed with the deliv- 
ery of the cattle. Fluctuations in the market cut no 
figure. Roosevelt would have made delivery at the 
agreed price even if the Chicago price had gone up." 
Roosevelt turned to the Marquis. " Did you 
agree to pay six cents for these cattle? " 

" Yes," the Marquis admitted. " But the Chi- 
cago price — " 

" Are you going to pay six cents for them? " 
Roosevelt broke in. 

" No; I will pay five and a half cents." 
Roosevelt turned abruptly to his cowpunchers. 
" Drive 'em out, boys," he said. The men drove out 
the cattle. 

" There was no particular ill-feeling between 
them," Packard said later, " and Roosevelt gave 
the Marquis credit for an honest belief that a 
variation in the Chicago price would cut a figure in 



THE FIRST CLASH 341 

their agreed price. It was that very fact, however, 
which made impossible any further business rela- 
tions between them." 

The Pioneer Press of St. Paul, in its issue of August 
23d, 1885, tells its own version of the story. 

About a year ago the Marquis made a verbal contract 
with Theodore Roosevelt, the New York politician, who 
owns an immense cattle ranch near Medora, agreeing to 
purchase a number of head of cattle. Roosevelt had his 
stock driven down to the point agreed upon, when the 
Marquis declined to receive them, and declared that he 
had made no such contract. Roosevelt stormed a little, 
but finally subsided and gave orders to his men not 
to sell any cattle to the Marquis or -transact any busi- 
ness with him. The relations between the Marquis and 
Roosevelt have since been somewhat strained. 

A reporter of the Bismarck Tribune, a few days 
after this story appeared, caught Roosevelt as he 
was passing through the city on his return from a 
flying visit to the East, and evidently asked him 
what truth there was in it. His deprecation of the 
story is not altogether conclusive. 

Theodore Roosevelt, the young reformer of New York, 
passed through this city yesterday [he writes], en route 
to his ranch in the Bad Lands. He was as bright and 
talkative as ever, and spoke of the great opportunities 
of the imperial Northwest with more enthusiasm than 
has ever been exhibited by the most sanguine old-timer. 
Mr. Roosevelt recently had a slight tilt with the Marquis 
de Mores on a cattle deal, and the story has been ex- 
aggerated until readers of Eastern papers are led to be- 
lieve that these two cattle kings never speak as they pass 



342 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

by and are looking for each other with clubs. This is 
not true. 

Meanwhile, during those summer months of 
1885 the hot water into which the Frenchman had 
flung himself when he assisted in the killing of 
Riley Luffsey began to simmer once more. It came 
to a boil on August 26th, when a grand jury in 
Mandan indicted the Marquis de Mores for murder 
in the first degree. 

The Marquis had not been unaware how matters 
were shaping themselves. When the movement to 
have him indicted first got under way, in fact, it 
was intimated to him that a little matter of fif- 
teen hundred dollars judiciously distributed would 
cause the indictment to be withdrawn. He inquired 
whether the indictment would stay withdrawn or 
whether he w^ould be subject to indictment and, in 
consequence, to blackmail, during the rest of his 
life. He was told that since he had never been 
acquitted by a jury, he might be indicted at any 
moment, the next ' day, or ten years hence. He 
declared that he preferred to clean up the matter 
then and there. 

" I have plenty of money for defense," he said 
to a reporter of the New York Times, adapting, 
not without humor, a famous American war-cry to 
his own situation, " but not a dollar for blackmail." 

Knowing the ways of courts, he removed himself 
from the Territory while the forces were being 
gathered against him at Mandan. 

** I determined that I would not be put in jail," 



INDICTMENT OF THE MARQUIS 343 

he explained to the Times interviewer, " to lie there 
perhaps for months waiting for a trial. Besides, a 
jail is not a safe place in that part of the country. 
Now the court seems to be ready and so will I be 
in a few days. I do not fear the result." 

He was convinced that the same forces which had 
thwarted him in his business enterprises were using 
the Luffsey episode to push him out of the way. 

" I think the charge has been kept hanging over 
me," he said, " for the purpose of breaking up my 
business. It was known that I intended to kill and 
ship beef to Chicago and other Eastern cities, and 
had expended much money in preparations. If I 
could have been arrested and put in jail some months 
ago, it might have injured my business and perhaps 
have put an end to my career." 

The Marquis was convinced that it was Roosevelt 
who was financing the opposition to him and spoke 
of him with intense bitterness. 

The indictment of the Marquis, meanwhile, was 
mightily agitating the western part of the Territory. 
Sentiment in the matter had somewhat veered 
since the first trials which had been held two years 
before. The soberer of the citizens, recognizing the 
real impetus which the Marquis's energy and wealth 
had given to the commercial activity of the West 
Missouri region, were inclined to sympathize with 
him. There was a widespread belief that in the 
matter of the indictment the Marquis had fallen 
among thieves. 

The Marquis returned from the East about the 



344 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

last day of August, and gave himself up to the sheriff 
at Mandan. He was promptly lodged in jail. The 
remark he had made to the interviewer in New 
York, that a jail was not a safe place in Dakota, 
proved prophetic. A mob, composed of cowboys 
and lumberjacks, bombarded the jail in whicfi the 
Marquis was confined. At the close of the bombard- 
ment, Roosevelt, who happened to be in Mandan, 
on his way to the East, called on the Marquis. 

In the Marquis's cell he found the Frenchman 
with his faithful valet and secretary. The secretary 
was under the bed, but the Marquis was sitting on 
its edge, calmly smoking a cigarette. 

As the date for the trial drew near, feeling rose. 
The idle and vociferous elements in the town dis- 
covered that the Marquis was a plutocrat and an 
enemy of the people, and called thirstily for his 
blood. There was a large Irish population, more- 
over, which remembered that the slain man had 
borne the name of Riley and (two years after his 
demise) hotly demanded vengeance. The Marquis 
declared that, with popular sentiment as it was, he 
could not be given a fair trial, and demanded a 
change of venue. It was granted. The mob, robbed 
of its prey, howled in disappointment. A mass 
meeting was held and resolutions were passed 
calling for the immediate removal of the iniquitous 
judge who had granted the Marquis's petition. 

The trial, which began on September 15th, was 
more nerve-racking for the lawyers than for the 
defendant. For the witnesses were elusive. The 



THE MARQUIS'S TRIAL 345 

trial seemed to be regarded by the majority of those 
connected with it as a gracious act of Providence 
for the redistribution of some of the Marquis's 
wealth. Everybody, it seemed, was thrusting a 
finger into the Marquis's purse. One of his friends 
later admitted that the Frenchman's money had 
been freely used, " but, of course, only," he blandly 
explained, " to persuade the witnesses to tell the 
truth." 

McFay, a carpenter, who had distinguished him- 
self at the previous trial by the melodramatic qual- 
ity of his testimony, proved the peskiest witness 
of all. He was spending his days and his nights 
during the trial gambling and living high. When- 
ever his money gave out he called at the office of 
one of the Marquis's supporters to " borrow " fifty 
dollars to continue his revelry, and the victim was 
too much afraid of what fiction he might tell the 
jury to refuse him. It was determined in solemn 
conclave, however, that McFay should be the first 
witness called, and disposed of. 

The law>'ers breathed a sigh of relief when the 
time came to put the shifty carpenter on the stand. 
But just as he was to be called, McFay drew aside 
the friend of the Marquis whom he had so success- 
fully bled. 

" Come outside a minute," he said. 

The friend went. 

" My memory is getting damn poor," declared 
the carpenter. 

"How much do you want? " 



346 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

" Oh, five hundred." 

He got it. The trial proceeded. 

One juror was, for no reason which they them- 
selves could adequately analyze, withdrawn by the 
Marquis's attorneys at the last minute. He told 
one of them years after that, if he had been allowed 
to serve, he would have " hung up the jury until 
some one had passed him ten thousand." It was a 
close shave. 

Two items in the testimony were notably sig- 
nificant. One was contributed by the Marquis: 
" O'Donald and Luffsey discharged all the barrels 
of their revolvers," he said, " and then began to 
shoot with their rifles." The other item was con- 
tributed by Sheriff Harmon, who arrested O'Donald 
and " Dutch Wannigan " immediately after the 
affray. He testified " that the guns and pistols of 
the hunters were loaded when handed to him." 

The jury made no attempt to pick its way through 
contradictions such as this, and returned to the 
court room after an absence of ten minutes with a 
verdict of " not guilty." 

The Marquis's acquittal did not, it seems, mollify 
his bitterness toward Roosevelt. He prided himself 
on his judgment, as he had once informed Howard 
Eaton, but his judgment had a habit of basing its 
conclusions on somewhat nebulous premises. Tw^o 
or three bits of circumstantial evidence had served 
to convince the Marquis definitely that Roosevelt 
had been the impelling force behind the prosecution. 
The fact that " Dutch Wannigan " was an employee 



THE MARQUIS SEES RED 347 

of Roosevelt's, In itself, not unnaturally, perhaps, 
stirred the Marquis's ire. When he was told, how- 
ever, that " Dutch Wannigan," before departing 
for the trial at Mandan, had received money from 
Joe Ferris, his suspicions appeared confirmed, for 
Joe was known to be Roosevelt's close friend, and 
it was an open secret that Roosevelt was financ- 
ing Joe's venture in storekeeping. If his suspicions 
needed further confirmation, they seemed to get it 
when a little, black-haired Irishman, named Jimmie 
McShane, otherwise known as " Dynamite Jimmie," 
received a sum of money from Joe Ferris and ap- 
peared at the trial as the first witness for the prosecu- 
tion. On the surface the case against Roosevelt was 
convincing, and the Marquis evidently did not dip 
beneath it. If he had, he would have realized that 
Joe Ferris was the acknowledged banker of the Bad 
Lands to whom practically all the thrifty souls among 
the cowpunchers brought a portion of their wages 
for safe-keeping. When " Dutch Wannigan " and 
" Dynamite Jimmie," therefore, received money from 
Joe Ferris, they received only what was their own, 
and what they needed for their expenses at the trial. 
But the Marquis, whose mind liked to jump 
goat-like from crag to crag, did not stop to examine 
the evidence against Roosevelt. He accepted it at 
its face value, and wrote Roosevelt a stinging letter, 
telling him that he had heard that Roosevelt had 
influenced witnesses against him in the murder 
trial. He had supposed, he said, that there was 
nothing but friendly feeling between himself and 



348 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt, but since it was otherwise there was 
always " a way of settling differences between 
gentlemen." 

Roosevelt, who had returned from the East 
early in October, received the letter at Elkhorn 
Ranch and read it aloud to Bill Sewall. " That's 
a threat," he exclaimed. "He is trying to bully 
me. He can't bully me. I am going to write him a 
letter myself. Bill," he went on, " I don't want to 
disgrace my family by fighting a duel. I don't 
believe in fighting duels. My friends don't any of 
them believe in it. They would be very much op- 
posed to anything of the kind, but I won't be bullied 
by a Frenchman. Now, as I am the challenged 
party, I have the privilege of naming the weapons. 
I am no swordsman, and pistols are too uncertain 
and Frenchy for me. So what do you say if I make 
it rifles? " 

Roosevelt sat down on a log and then and there 
drafted his reply. He had no unfriendly feeling for 
the Marquis, he wrote, ** but, as the closing sentence 
of your letter implies a threat, I feel it my duty to 
say that I am ready at all times and at all places 
to answer for my actions." 

Then he added that if the Marquis's letter was 
meant as a challenge, and he insisted upon having 
satisfaction, he would meet him with rifles at twelve 
paces, the adversaries to shoot and advance until 
one or the other dropped. 

" Now," said Roosevelt, " I expect he'll challenge 
me. If he does, I want you for my second." 



PEACE 349 

Sewall grunted. " You will never have to fight 
any duel of that kind with that man," he said. 
" He won't challenge you. He will find some way 
out of it." 

Roosevelt was not at all sure of this. The Mar- 
quis was a bully, but he was no coward. 

A day or so later the answer came by special 
messenger. Roosevelt brought it over to Sewall. 
" You were right, Bill, about the Marquis," he said. 

Sewall read the Marquis's letter. The Marquis 
declared that Roosevelt had completely misunder- 
stood the meaning of his message. The idea that 
he had meant to convey was that there was always 
a way of settling affairs of that sort between gentle- 
men — without trouble. And would not Mr. Roose- 
velt do him the honor of dining with him, and so 
forth and so on? 

" The Marquis," as Roosevelt remarked long 
afterward, " had a streak of intelligent acceptance 
of facts, and as long as he did not publicly lose caste 
or incur ridicule by backing down, he did not intend 
to run risk without adequate object. He did not 
expect his bluff to be called; and when it was, he 
had to make up his mind to withdraw it." 

There was no more trouble after that between 
Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores. 



XXI 

I'd rather hear a rattler rattle, 

I'd rather buck stampeding cattle, 

I'd rather go to a greaser battle, 

Than — 

Than to — 

Than to fight — 

Than to fight the bloody In-ji-ans. 

I'd rather eat a i^an of dope, 
. I'd rather ride without a rope, 
I'd rather from this country lope. 
Than — 
Than to — 
Than to fight — 
Than to fight the bloody In-ji-ans. 



Cowboy song 



All through that autumn of 1885, Roosevelt re- 
mained in the Bad Lands. With his whole being he 
reveled in the wild and care-free life ; but the news- 
papers did not seem to be able to rise above the 
notion that he was in Dakota for political purposes: 

Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, it is rumored [remarked the 
Chicago Tribune] has an eye on politics in Dakota, and 
is making himself popular with the natives. He is bright, 
certainly, but Mr. Roosevelt will find the methods in 
Dakota quite different from those which gave him sud- 
den prominence in New York. There is a great deal 
of breeziness in a Dakota convention, but it is not the 
breeziness of innocence. It is high art. The number of 
gentlemen who are in training for United States senator- 
ships, when Dakota shall have acquired admission, is 
not limited, and each and every aspirant can pull a 
wire with a silent grace which is fascinating. If Mr. 



RED MAN AND WHITE 351 

Roosevelt really likes politics, he will enjoy himself in 
Dakota. 

If Roosevelt had any notion of entering the race 
for the senatorship in Dakota, he has left no record 
of it. Howard Eaton spoke to him once about it. 
He was interested and even a little stirred, it ap- 
peared, at the possibility of representing the fron- 
tier in the United States Senate as, half a century 
previous, Thomas H. Benton, of Tennessee, whom 
he greatly admired, had represented it. But the 
thought failed to take permanent hold of him. He 
was, moreover, thinking of himself in those days 
more as a writer than as a politician. 

The autumn was not without excitement. A 
small band of Indians began here and there to set 
fire to the prairie grass, and before the cattlemen 
realized what was happening, thousands of acres of 
winter feed lay blackened and desolate. 

This act of ruthless destruction was the climax 
of a war of reprisals which had been carried on 
relentlessly between the Indians and the white men 
since the first bold pioneer had entered the West 
Missouri country. There was endless trouble and 
bad blood between the races, which at intervals 
flared up in an outrage, the details of which were 
never told in print because they were as a rule un- 
printable. In the region between the Little Missouri 
and the Yellowstone, in the years 1884 and 1885, 
the wounds left by the wars, which had culminated 
in the death of Custer at the Little Big Horn, were 
still open and sore. In the conflict between white 



352 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and red, the Indians were not always the ones who 
were most at fault. In many cases the robberies 
and other crimes which were committed were the 
acts of men maddened by starvation, for the ranges 
where they had hunted had been taken from them, 
and the reservations in many cases offered insuffi- 
cient food. The agents of the Great White Father, 
moreover, were not always over-careful to give 
them all the cattle and the ponies which the Gov- 
ernment was by treaty supposed to grant them. 
In consequence they " lifted " a cow or a calf 
where they could. The cattlemen, on their part, 
thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of might is 
right, regarded the Indians as a public enemy, and 
were disposed to treat their ponies and any other 
property which they might possess as legitimate 
prize of war. There was, in fact, during the middle 
eighties, open and undisguised warfare between 
red and white throughout the region whose eastern 
border was the Bad Lands. It was, moreover, a 
peculiarly atrocious warfare. Many white men shot 
whatever Indians they came upon like coyotes, on 
sight; others captured them, when they could, and, 
stripping off their clothes, whipped them till they 
bled. The Indians retaliated horribly, delivering 
their white captives to their squaws, who tortured 
them in every conceivable fashion, driving slivers 
up under their nails, burning them alive, and feeding 
them with flesh cut from their own bodies. Along 
the banks of the Little Missouri there were no out- 
rages, for the Indians had been driven out of the 



ROOSEVELT'S ADVENTURE 353 

country at the end of the seventies, and, save for 
occasional raids in the early eighties, had made little 
trouble; but at the edge of the Bad Lands there 
was a skirmish now and then, and in the winter of 
1884 Schuyler Lebo, son of that odd Ulysses who 
had guided Roosevelt to the Big Horn Mountains, 
was shot in the leg by an Indian while he was 
hunting on Bullion Butte. 

Roosevelt had a little adventure of his own with 
Indians that summer. He was traveling along the 
edge of the prairie on a solitary journey to the un- 
explored country north and east of the fange on 
which his cattle grazed, and was crossing a narrow 
plateau when he suddenly saw a group of four or 
five Indians come up over the edge directly in front. 
As they saw him, they whipped their guns out of 
their slings, started their horses into a run, and 
came toward him at full speed. 

He reined up instantly and dismounted. 

The Indians came on, whooping and brandishing 
their weapons. 

Roosevelt laid his gun across the saddle and 
waited. 

It was possible [Roosevelt wrote subsequently] that 
the Indians were merely making a bluff and intended 
no mischief. But I did not like their actions, and I 
thought it likely that if I allowed them to get hold of 
me they would at least take my horse and rifle, and pos- 
sibly kill me. So I waited until they were a hundred 
yards off and then drew a bead on the first. Indians — 
and, for the matter of that, white men — do not like 
to ride in on a man who is cool and means shooting, and 



354 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

in a twinkling every man was lying over the side of his 
horse, and all five had turned and were galloping back- 
wards, having altered their course as quickly as so many 
teal ducks. 

At some distance the Indians halted and gathered 
evidently for a conference. 

Thereupon one man came forward alone, making 
the peace sign first with his blanket and then with 
his open hand. Roosevelt let him come to within 
fifty yards. The Indian was waving a piece of 
soiled paper, his reservation pass. 

" How! Me good Injun," he called. 

" How! " Roosevelt answered. "I'm glad you 
are. But don't come any closer." 

The Indian asked for sugar and tobacco. Roose- 
velt told him that he had none. Another Indian 
now began almost imperceptibly to approach. 
Roosevelt called to him to keep back, but the 
Indian paid no attention. 

Roosevelt whipped up his gun once more, covering 
the spokesman. That individual burst into a volume 
of perfect Anglo-Saxon profanity; but he retired, 
which was what he was supposed to do. Roosevelt 
led the faithful Manitou off toward the plains. 
The Indians followed him at a distance for two miles 
or more, but as he reached the open country at last 
they vanished in the radiant dust of the prairie. 

Indians were a familiar sight in Medora and 
about the ranch-houses up and down the Little 
Missouri. In groups of a half-dozen or over they 
were formidable, but singly they were harmless and 



GOOD INDIAN, DEAD INDIAN 355 

rather pathetic creatures. Roosevelt's attitude to- 
ward the Indians as a race was unequivocal. He 
detested them for their cruelty, and even more for 
their emphasis on cruelty as a virtue to be carefully 
developed as a white man might develop a sense of 
chivalry; but he recognized the fact that they had 
rights as human beings and as members of tribes 
having treaty relations with the United States, and 
insisted in season and out of season that those 
rights be respected. 

I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the 
Western view of the Indian [he said in the course of a 
lecture which he delivered in New York, during January, 
1886]. I don't go so far as to think that the only good 
Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of 
every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely 
into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has 
more moral principle than the average Indian. Turn 
three hundred low families of New York into New 
Jersey, support them for fifty years in vicious idleness, 
and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. 
Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and mur- 
der, not the cowboys, who can take care of themselves, 
but the defenseless, lone settlers on the plains. As for 
the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a 
cannon. " What! Do you want to kill my soldiers 
with it? " asked the general. " No," replied the chief, 
" want to kill the cowboy; kill soldier with a club." 

It was characteristic of Roosevelt that, in spite 
of his detestation of the race, he should have been 
meticulously fair to the individual members of it 
who happened to cross his path. He made it a 
point, both at the Maltese Cross and at Elkhorn, 



356 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

that the Indians who drifted in and out at intervals 
should be treated as fairly as the whites, neither 
wronging them himself nor allowing others to 
wrong them. 

Mrs. Maddox, the maker of the famous buckskin 
shirt, who was an extraordinary woman in more 
ways than one, had her own very individual notions 
concerning the rights of the Indians. When Roose- 
velt stopped at her shack one day, he found three 
Sioux Indians there, evidently trustworthy, self- 
respecting men. Mrs. Maddox explained to him 
that they had been resting there waiting for dinner, 
when a white man had come along and tried to 
run off with their horses. The Indians had caught 
the man, but, after retaking their horses and de- 
priving him of his gun, had let him go. 

" I don't see why they let him go," she exclaimed. 
" I don't believe in stealing Indians' horses anymore 
than white folks', so I told 'em they could go along 
and hang him, I'd never cheep! Anyhow I won't 
charge them anything for their dinner," she con- 
cluded. 

The psychology of the Indians was curious, and 
it took time occasionally for their better qualities 
to reveal themselves. As chairman of the Little 
Missouri Stock Association, Roosevelt on one occa- 
sion recovered two horses which had been stolen 
from an old Indian. The Indian took them, mutter- 
ing something that sounded like " Um, um," and 
without a word or a gesture of gratitude rode away 
with his property. Roosevelt felt cheap, as though 



PRAIRIE FIRES 357 

he had done a service which had not been appreci- 
ated; but a few days later the old Indian came to 
him and silently laid in his arms a hide bearing an 
elaborate painting of the battle of the Little Big 
Horn. 

The depredations of the Indians in the autumn of 
1885 made concerted action on the part of the cattle- 
men inevitable. The damage which the fires did to 
the cattle ranges themselves was not extensive, for 
the devastation was confined in the main to a strip 
of country about eighteen miles on either side of 
the railroad's right of way, and the ranches were 
situated from twenty-five to eighty miles from the 
track. The real harm which the fires did was in 
the destruction of the " drives " to the railroad. 
Driving cattle tended, under the best conditions of 
water and pasture, to cause loss of weight; when 
the " drive " lay through a burnt district for twenty 
or twenty-five miles the deterioration of the cattle 
became a serious matter. 

Day after day the cowboys fought the fires. It 
was peculiarly harassing work. 

The process we usually followed [Roosevelt wrote in 
his Autobiography] was to kill a steer, split it in two 
lengthwise, and then have two riders drag each half- 
steer, the rope of one running from his saddle-horn to 
the front leg, and that of the other to the hind leg. One 
of the men would spur his horse over or through the 
line of fire, and the two would then ride forward, drag- 
ging the steer, bloody side downward, along the line of 
flame, men following on foot with slickers or wet horse- 
blankets to beat out any flickering blaze that was still 



358 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

left. It was exciting work, for the fire and the twitching 
and plucking of the ox carcass over the uneven ground 
maddened the fierce little horses so that it was necessary 
to do some riding in order to keep them to their work. 
After a while it also became very exhausting, the thirst 
and fatigue being great, as, with parched lips and black- 
ened from head to foot, we toiled at our task. 

Work of this sort, day in, day out, did not make 
for magnanimity on the part of the cowboys. It 
was found that seventy-five Indians, who had re- 
ceived hunting permits from the agent at Berthold, 
were responsible for the devastation, and even the 
Eastern newspapers began to carry reports about a 
** serious conflict " which was likely to break out 
any minute " between cattlemen and Indian hun- 
ters in the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri." 

Some one evidently called a meeting of the Little 
Missouri River Stockmen's Association to consider 
the situation, which was becoming dangerous, for 
on November 4th the New York Herald reported 
that 

the Cattle Association on Thursday next will send in 
a party of thirty-five cowboys to order the Indians off 
the Bad Lands and to see that they go. The Indians, 
being well armed and having permits [the report con- 
cluded] are expected to resist unless they are surprised 
when separated in small parties. 

Whether or not the party was ever sent Is dark; 
but there was no furtlier trouble with the Indians 
that year. 

Roosevelt did not attend the meeting of the 



SEWALL DELIVERS A LECTURE 359 

Association he himself had established. Sometime 
after the middle of October, he had returned to the 
East. On October 24th he rode with the Meadow- 
brook Hunt Club and broke his arm, riding in at 
the death in spite of a dangling sleeve. A week or 
two later he was again in the Bad Lands. 

He was a sorry sight as he arrived at Elkhorn 
Ranch, for his broken arm had not been the only- 
injury he had incurred. His face was scarred and 
battered. 

Bill Sewall regarded him with frank disapproval. 
"You're too valuable a man to use yourself up chas- 
ing foxes," he remarked. "There's some men that 
can afford to do it. There's some men that it don't 
make much difference if they do break their necks. 
But you don't belong to that class." 

Roosevelt took the lecture without protest, giv- 
ing his mentor the impression that it had sunk in. 

Roosevelt remained in the Bad Lands until after 
Christmas, shooting his Christmas dinner in company 
with Sylvane. Before the middle of January he was 
back in New York, writing articles for Outing and the 
Century, doing some work as a publisher in partner- 
ship with a friend of his boyhood, George Haven 
Putnam, delivering an occasional lecture, and now 
and then making a political speech. Altogether, 
life was not dull for him. 

Meanwhile, winter closed once more over the 
Bad Lands. The Marquis went to France, followed 
by rumors disquieting to those who had high hopes 



360 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

for the future of what the Marquis Hked to call 
" my little town." J. B. Walker, who " operated 
the Elk Hotel," as the phrase went, " skipped out," 
leaving behind him a thousand dollars' worth of 
debts and a stock of strong drink. Nobody claimed 
the debts, but Hell-Roaring Bill Jones took pos- 
session of the deserted cellar and sold drinks to his 
own great financial benefit, until it occurred to some 
unduly inquisitive person to inquire into his rights; 
which spoiled everything. 

The event of real importance was the arrival of 
a new bride in Medora. For early in January, 1886, 
Joe Ferris went East to New Brunswick; and when 
he came back a month later he brought a wife with 
him. 

It was a notable event. The " boys " had planned 
to give Joe and his lady a " shivaree," such as even 
Medora had never encountered before, but Joe, who 
was crafty and knew his neighbors, succeeded in 
misleading the population of the town concerning 
the exact hour of his arrival with his somewhat 
apprehensive bride. There was a wild scurrying 
after tin pans and bells and other objects which 
were effective as producers of bedlam, but Joe 
sent a friend forth with a bill of high denomination 
and the suggestion that the '* boys " break it at 
Bill Williams's saloon, which had the desired effect. 

The "bo3^s" took the greatest interest in the 
wife whom Joe (who was popular in town) had taken 
to himself out in New Brunswick, and there was 
real trepidation lest Joe's wife might be the wrong 




JOSEPH A. FERRIS 




JOE FERRIS'S STORE 



THE TESTING OF MRS. JOE 361 

sort. Other men, who had been good fellows and 
had run with the boys, had married and been 
weaned from their old companions, bringing out 
wbmen who did not "fit in," who felt superior to 
the cowboys and did not take the trouble to 'hide 
their feelings. The great test was, whether Joe's 
wife would or would not like Mrs. Cummins. For 
Mrs. Cummins, in the minds of the cowpunchers, 
stood for everything that was reprehensible in the 
way of snobbery and lack of the human touch. If 
Mrs. Ferris liked Mrs. Cummins, it was all over; 
if she properly disliked her, she would do. 

Mrs. Cummins called in due course. Merrifield 
was on the porch of the store when she came and 
in his excited way carried the news to the boys. 
As soon as she left by the front steps, Merrifield 
bounded up by the back. His eyes were gleaming. 

" Well, now, Mrs. Ferris," he cried, " how did 
you like her? " 

Mrs. Ferris laughed. 

" Well, what did she say? " Merrifield pursued 
impatiently. 

" Why," remarked Mrs. Joe, " for one thing she 
says I mustn't trust any of you cowboys." 

Merrifield burst into a hearty laugh. " That's 
her! " he cried. J' That's her! What else did she 
say? " 

" She told me how I ought to ride, and the kind 
of horse I ought to get, and — " 

" Go on, Mrs. Ferris," cried Merrifield. 

" Why, she says I never want to ride any horse 



362 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

that any of you cowboys give me, for you're all 
bad, and you haven't any consideration for a woman 
and you'd as hef see a woman thro wed off and killed 
as not." 

Merrifield's eyes sparkled in the attractive way 
they had when he was in a hilarious mood. " Say, 
did you ever hear the like of that? You'd think, 
to hear that woman talk, that we was nothing but 
murderers. What else did she say? " 

" Well," remarked the new bride, " she said a 
good many things." 

" You tell me, Mrs. Ferris," Merrifield urged. 

" For one thing she said the cowboys was vulgar 
and didn't have any manners. And — oh, yes — 
she said that refined folks who knew the better 
things of life ought to stick together and not sink 
to the level of common people." 

" Now, Mrs. Ferris," remarked Merrifield in- 
dignantly, " ain't that a ree-di-culous woman? 
Ain't she now? " 

Mrs. Ferris laughed until the tears came to her 
eyes. " I think she is," she admitted. 

Merrifield carried the news triumphantly to the 
" boys," and the new bride's standing was estab- 
lished. She became a sort of " honorary member- 
once-removed " of the friendly order of cow- 
punchers, associated with them by a dozen ties of 
human understanding, yet, by her sex, removed to 
a special niche apart, where the most irresponsible 
did not fail, drunk or sober, to do her deference. 
For her ears language was washed and scrubbed. 



MRS. JOE TAKES HOLD 363 

Men who appeared to have forgotten what shame 
was, were ashamed to have Mrs. Ferris know how 
unashamed they could be. Poor old Van Zander, 
whom every one in Billings County had seen 
*' stewed to the gills," pleaded with Joe not to tell 
Mrs. Ferris that Joe had seen him drunk. 

It became a custom, in anticipation of a " shiv- 
aree," to send round word to Mrs. Ferris not to be 
afraid, the shooting was all in fun. 

A woman would have been less than human who 
had failed to feel at home in the midst of such evi- 
dences of warmth and friendly consideration. Joe 
Ferris's store became more than ever the center of 
life in Medora, as the wife whom Joe had brought 
from New Brunswick made his friends her friends 
and made her home theirs also. 

She had been in Medora less than a month when 
news came from Roosevelt that he was getting ready 
to start West and would arrive on the Little Mis- 
souri sometime about the middle of March. Joe's 
wife knew how to get along with " boys " who were 
Joe's kind, but here was a different sort of proposi- 
tion confronting her. Here was a wealthy, and, in a 
modest way, a noted, man coming to sleep under 
her roof and eat at her table. The prospect appalled 
her. Possibly she had visions, for all that Joe could 
say, of a sort of male Mrs. Cummins. " I was 
scairt to death," she admitted later. 

Roosevelt arrived on March i8th. His " city 
get-up " was slightly distracting, for it had a per- 
fection of style that Mrs. Joe was not accustomed 



364 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

to; but his delight at his return to the Bad Lands 
was so frank and so expressive that her anxiety 
began to dissolve in her wonder at this vehement 
and attractive being who treated her like a queen. 
He jumped in the air, clicking his heels together 
like a boy let unexpectedly out of school, and at 
odd moments clapped Joe on the back, cr\ung, 
" By George! By George! " with the relish of a 
cannibal reaching into the pot for a second joint. 

She tried to treat him like the city man that he 
looked, but he promptly put a stop to that. 

" Just use me like one of the boys, Mrs. Ferris," 
he said decisively. ' His words sounded sincere; but, 
being a shrewd-minded lady, she wondered, never- 
theless. 

She did not know him when he came down to 
breakfast next morning. Vanished was the " dude," 
and in his place stood a typical cowpuncher in 
shaps and flannel shirt and knotted handkerchief. 
And his clothes revealed that they had not been 
worn only indoors. 

He gave an exclamation of delight as he entered 
the dining-room. " A white tablecloth in the Bad 
Lands! Joe, did you ever expect to see it.'' " 

There was no more ice to break after that. 



XXII 

"Listen, gentle stranger, I'll read my pedigree: 
I'm known on handling tenderfeet and worser men than thee; 
The lions on the mountains, I've drove them to their lairs; 
The wild-cats are my playmates, and I've wrestled grizzly bears; 

"The centipedes have tried and failed to mar my tough old hide, 
And rattlesnakes have bit me, and crawled away and died. 
I'm as wild as the wild horse that roams the boundless plains, 
The moss grows on my teeth and wild blood flows through my veins. 

"I'm wild and woolly and full of fleas, 
And never been curried below the knees. 
Now, little stranger, if you'll give me your address, — 
How would you like to go, by fast mail or express?" 

Buckskin Joe 

That spring of 1886 Roosevelt had a notable ad- 
venture. He arrived at Elkhorn on March 19th. 

I got out here all right [he wrote his sister " Bamie " 
the following day] and was met at the station by my men; 
I was really heartily glad to see the great, stalwart, 
bearded fellows again, and they were as honestly pleased 
to see me. Joe Ferris is married, and his wife made 
me most comfortable the night I spent in town. Next 
morning snow covered the ground; we pushed down, in 
a rough four-in-hand (how our rig would have made 
the estimable Mrs. Blank open her eyes!) to this ranch 
which we reached long after sunset, the full moon 
flooding the landscape with light. 

It was like coming home from a foreign country 
to see the Little Missouri once more, and the 
strangely fascinating desolation of the Bad Lands, 
and the home ranch and the " folks " from Maine 
and the loyal friends of the Maltese Cross. He had 



366 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

good friends in the East, but there was a warmth 
and a stalwart sincerity in the comradeship of these 
men and women which he had scarcely found 
elsewhere. Through the cold evenings of that early 
spring he loved to lie stretched at full length on the 
elk-hides and wolf-skins in front of the great fire- 
place, while the blazing logs crackled and roared, 
and Sewall and Dow and the " womenfolks " re- 
counted the happenings of the season of his absence. 
Spring came early that year and about the 20th 
of March a great ice- jam, which had formed at a 
bend far up the river, came slowly past Elkhorn, 
roaring and crunching and piling the ice high on 
both banks. 

There has been an ice gorge right in front of the house 
[he wrote " Bamie "], the swelling mass of broken frag- 
ments having been pushed almost up to our doorstep. 
The current then broke through the middle, leaving on 
each side of the stream, for some miles, a bank of huge 
ice-floes, tumbled over each other in the wildest con- 
fusion. No horse could by any chance get across; we 
men have a boat, and even thus it is most laborious 
carrying it out to the water; we work like arctic ex- 
plorers. 

Early in the spring, Sewall and Dow had crossed 
the river to hunt for a few days in the rough hills 
to the east, and had killed four deer which they 
had hung in a tree to keep them from the coyotes. 
Roosevelt determined to go with his men to bring 
home the deer, but when, after infinite difficulty, 
they reached the thicket of dwarf cedars where 



THE THEFT OF THE BOAT 367 

the deer had been hung, they found nothing save 
scattered pieces of their carcasses, and roundabout 
the deeply marked footprints of a pair of cougars, 
or " mountain Hons." The beasts had evidently 
been at work for some time and had eaten almost 
every scrap of flesh. Roosevelt and his men followed 
their tracks into a tangle of rocky hills, but, before 
they had come in sight of the quarry, dusk obscured 
the footprints and they returned home resolved 
to renew the pursuit at dawn. They tied their boat 
securely to a tree high up on the bank. 

The next day Roosevelt made arrangements with 
a companion of many hunts, " old man " Tompkins, 
who was living in the shack which Captain Robins 
had occupied, to make a determined pursuit of 
the cougars; but when, the following morning, he 
was ready to start once more for the farther shore, 
his boat was gone. It was Bill Sewall who made 
the discovery. He was not a man easily excited, 
and he took a certain quiet satisfaction in sitting 
down to breakfast and saying nothing while Roose- 
velt held forth concerning the fate which was await- 
ing the mountain lions. 

"I guess we won't go to-day," said Sewall, at 
length, munching the last of his breakfast. 

" Why not? " Roosevelt demanded. 

Sewall showed him a red woolen mitten with a 
leather palm which he had picked up on the ice, 
and the end of the rope by which the boat had been 
tied. It had been cut with a sharp knife. " Some 
one has gone off with the boat," he said. 



368 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt had no doubt who had stolen the boat, 
for the thief or thieves could scarcely have come by- 
land without being detected. There was only one 
other boat on the Little Missouri, and that was a 
small flat-bottom scow owned by three hard char- 
acters who lived in a shack twenty miles above 
Elkhorn. They were considered suspicious persons, 
and Roosevelt and his men had shrewdly surmised 
for some time that they were considering the advis- 
ability of " skipping the country " before the vigil- 
antes got after them. On inquiry they found that 
the shack which the men had occupied was de- 
serted. 

The leader of the three was a stocky, ill-looking 
individual named Finnegan, with fiery red hair 
which fell to his shoulders, gaining for him the 
nickname '* Redhead " Finnegan; a brick-red com- 
plexion, and an evil reputation. He was a surly, 
quarrelsome, unkempt creature, and when he came 
into a saloon with his stumbling gait (as he fre- 
quently did), self-respecting cowboys had a way of 
leavmg him in full possession of the field, not because 
they feared him, but because they did not care to 
be seen in his presence. He boasted that he was 
" from Bitter Creek, where the farther up you went 
the worse people got," and he lived " at the fountain 
head." He had blown into Medora early in March 
and had promptly gone to Bill Williams's saloon 
and filled up on Bill Williams's peculiarly wicked 
brand of " conversation juice." 

" Well, it laid him out all right enough," remarked 



REDHEAD FINNEGAN 369 

Lincoln Lang, telling about it in after years. " I 
can testify to that, since I was right there and saw 
the whole thing. Johnny Goodall, who was some 
practical joker at that time, went into the bar and 
saw Finnegan lying on the floor. He got some help 
and moved him to the billiard table. Then Goodall 
sent to the barber shop for a hair clipper, and pro- 
ceeded to operate in the following manner: first 
he clipped off one side of Finnegan's beard and 
moustache, and after that removed his long curls 
on one side, being careful to leave a stair pattern 
all up the side of his head. He concluded operations 
by removing the fringes upon one side of his buck- 
skin shirt. Next morning Finnegan sobered up and 
when he saw himself in the looking-glass he went 
bersark." 

" His heart got bad," Bill Dantz remarked, 
taking up the narrative. " He laid down in a fringe 
of brush near the Marquis's store, where he could 
command a clear view of the town, and began to 
pump lead into everything in sight." 

The first shot was aimed at the office of the 
Bad Lands Cowboy. Whether or not " Redhead " 
Finnegan had it in for the stern moralist who in- 
sisted that drunken criminals should be punished, 
not only for their crimes, but also for their drunken- 
ness, is a question on which the records are dark. 
Fisher was shaving in Packard's office and the shot 
broke the mirror in front of him. Packard, who was 
on horseback on the bluff behind Medora, saw Fisher 
dash out of the shack, and rushed to the scene of con- 



370 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

flict. His horse had knocked Finnegan senseless be- 
fore the desperado knew that the Chief of PoHce was 
on his trail. When Finnegan came to he was in a 
box-car, under lock and seal. But a friend released 
him, and the man from Bitter Creek made his way 
down the river to his cabin. 

The population of Medora had not relished 
Finnegan's bombardment, and suggestions concern- 
ing a possible " necktie party " began to make them- 
selves heard. Finnegan evidently decided that the 
time had come for him, and the men who lived with 
him in his ill-kept shack, to leave the country. 
Travel by horse or foot was impossible. The boat 
they owned was a miserable, leaky affair. The 
Elkhorn skiff had evidently appeared to Finnegan 
and Company in the nature of a godsend. 

Roosevelt's anger boiled up at the theft of the 
boat and he ran to saddle Manitou. But Sewall 
restrained him, pointing out that if the country was 
impassable for the horses of the thieves, it was no 
less impassable for the horses of the pursuers. He 
declared that he and Dow could build a flat- 
bottomed boat in three days. Roosevelt told him 
to go ahead. With the saddle band — his forty or 
fifty cow-ponies — on the farther side of the river, 
he could not afford to lose the boat. But the 
determining motive in his mind was neither chagrin 
nor anxiety to recover his property. In a country 
where self-reliant hardihood and the ability to hold 
one's own ' under all circumstances ranked as the 
first of the virtues, to submit tamely to theft or to 




WILMOT DOW AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
(1886) 




THE PIAZZA AT ELKHORN 

Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 



PREPARATIONS FOR PURSUIT 371 

any other injury was, he knew, to invite almost 
certain repetition of the offense. 

A journal which he kept for a month or two that 
spring gives in laconic terms a vivid picture of those 
March days. 

March 22. Tramped over to get deer; mountain lions 
had got them. 

March 23. Shot 4 prairie chickens. 

March 24. Thieves stole boat; started to build an- 
other to go after them. 

March 25. Went out after deer; saw nothing. Boat 
being built. River very high; ice piled upon banks sev- 
eral feet. 

March 26. Boat building. 

March 27. Boat built. Too cold to start. Shot 4 
chickens. 

March 28. Bitter cold. 

March 29. Furious blizzard. 

While Sewall and Dow, who were mighty men 
with their hands, were building the boat, and his 
other cowpuncher, Rowe, was hurrying to Medora 
to bring out a wagon-load of supplies for their 
contemplated journey, Roosevelt himself was by 
no means idle. He had agreed to write a life of 
Thomas Hart Benton for the American Statesmen 
Series, and, after two or three months' work in 
the East gathering his material, had begun the 
actual writing of the book immediately after his 
return to the Bad Lands. 

I have written the first chapter of the Benton [he 
wrote to Lodge on March 27th], so at any rate I have 
made a start. Writing is horribly hard work to me; 



372 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and I make slow progress. I have got some good ideas 
in the first chapter, but I am not sure they are worked 
up rightly; my style is very rough, and I do not like a 
certain lack of sequitur that I do not seem able to get 
rid of. 

I thought the article on Morris admirable in every 
way; one of your crack pieces. Some of the sentences 
were so thoroughly characteristic of you that I laughed 
aloud when I read them. One of my men, Sewall (a 
descendant of the Judge's, by the way), read it with 
as much interest as I did, and talked it over afterwards 
as intelligently as any one could. 

At present we are all snowed up by a blizzard; as 
soon as it lightens up I shall start down the river with 
two of my men in a boat we have built while indoors, 
after some horse-thieves who took our boat the other 
night to get out of the country with; but they have 
such a start we have very little chance of catching them. 
I shall take Matthew Arnold along ; I have had no chance 
at all to read it as yet. 

The next day he was writing to his sister " Bamie." 
He was evidently convinced that she would worry 
about him if she knew the nature of the adventure 
on which he was about to embark, for in his letter 
he protests almost too much concerning the utterly 
unexciting nature of his activities : 

Since I wrote you life has settled down into its usual 
monotonous course here. It is not as rough as I had 
expected; I have clean sheets, the cooking is pretty 
good, and above all I have a sitting-room with a great 
fireplace and a rocking-chair, which I use as my study. 

The walking is horrible; all slippery ice or else deep, 
sticky mud ; but as we are very short of meat I generally 
spend three or four hours a day tramping round after 



DEPARTURE 373 

prairie chickens, and one day last week I shot a deer. The 
rest of the time I read or else work at Benton, which is 
making very slow progress; writing is to me intensely 
irksome work. 

In a day or two, when the weather gets a little milder, 
I expect to start down the river in a boat, to go to Man- 
dan; the trip ought to take a week or ten days, more 
or less. It will be good fun. My life on the ranch this 
summer is not going to be an especially adventurous or 
exciting one ; and my work will be mainly one of super- 
vision so that there will be no especial hardship or labor. 

I really enjoy being with the men out here; they 
could be more exactly described as my retainers than 
as anything else; and I am able to keep on admirable 
terms with them and yet avoid the familiarity which 
would assuredly breed contempt. 

On the 30th of March the blizzard which had been 
raging a day or two moderated, and Roosevelt, 
hoping a thaw had set in, determined to set off 
after the thieves. They left Rowe as guard over the 
ranch and " the womenfolks," and with their un- 
wieldy but water-tight craft, laden with two weeks' 
provision of flour, coffee, and bacon, started to 
drift down the river. 

The region through which they passed was bare 
and bleak and terrible. On either side, beyond the 
heaped-up piles of ice, rose the scarred buttes, 
weather-worn Into fantastic shapes and strangely 
blotched with spots of brown and yellow, purple 
and red. Here and there the black coal-veins that 
ran through them were aflame, gleaming weirdly 
through the dusk as the three men made their 
camp that night. 



374 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The weather was cold and an icy wind blew in 
their faces. 

" We're like to have it in our faces all day," 
remarked Will Dow cheerfully, paddling at the bow. 

" We can't, unless it's the crookedest wind in 
Dakota," answered Sewall, who was steering. 

They followed the river's course hither and 
thither in and out among the crags, east and west, 
north and south. 

" It is the crookedest wind in Dakota," muttered 
Sewall to himself. 

The thermometer dropped to zero, but there was 
firewood in plenty, and they found prairie fowl and 
deer for their evening meals. Late the third day, 
rounding a bend, they saw their boat moored against 
the bank. Out of the bushes, a little way back, the 
smoke of a camp-fire curled up through the frosty 
air. 

" There's your boat! "cried Sewall, who had, in his 
own phrase, been "looking sharp." "Get your guns 
ready. I'll handle the boat." 

They flung off their heavy coats. Sewall was 
in the stern, steering the boat toward shore. Dow 
was at Roosevelt's side in the bow. Roosevelt saw 
the grim, eager look in their eyes, and his own eyes 
gleamed. 

He was the first ashore, leaping out of the boat 
as it touched the shore ice and running up behind a 
clump of bushes, so as to cover the landing of the 
others. Dow was beside him in an instant. Sewall 
was fastening the boat. 



HANDS UP 375 

It was rather funny business [Sewall wrote his brother 
subsequently] for one of the men was called a pretty 
hard ticket. He was also a shooting man. If he was in 
the bushes and saw us first he was liable to make it very 
unhealthy for us. 

Roosevelt and Dow peered through the bushes. 
Beside a fire in a grove of young cottonwoods a 
solitary figure was sitting; his guns were on the 
ground at his side. 

" Hands up! " 

Roosevelt and Dow rushed in on the man, who 
was not slow to do as he was told. He was a half- 
witted German named Wharfenberger, a tool of 
rogues more keen than he, whom Sewall later 
described as "an oldish man who drank so much 
poor whiskey that he had lost most of the manhood 
he ever possessed." 

They searched the old man, taking his gun and 
his knives from him, and telling him that if he did 
exactly as he was told they would use him well; 
but if he disobeyed or tried to signal the other 
men, they would kill him instantly. Knowing 
something of the frontier, he was ready to believe 
that he would be given short shrift, and was thor- 
oughly submissive. 

Finnegan and the third man, a half-breed named 
Bernstead, had, it seems, gone hunting, believing 
themselves safe. Sewall guarded the German, while 
Roosevelt and Dow, crouching under the lee of a 
cutbank, prepared to greet the others. 

The ground before them was as level as a floor, 



376 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

with no growth on it of any sort beside the short 
dead grass which would not have given cover to a 
rabbit. Beyond, to the east lay a wide stretch of 
level bottom covered with sagebrush as high as a 
man's waist, and beyond that was a fringe of bushes 
bordering a stretch of broken butte country. The 
wind had fallen. Save for the rush of the river, 
there was no sound. 

Will and I [Sewall wrote his brother] kept watch and 
listened — our eyes are better than Roosevelt's, Will 
on the right and I on the left. R. was to rise up and tell 
them to hands up. Will and I both with double barrel 
guns loaded with Buck shot, and we were all going to 
shoot if they offered to raise a gun. It is rather savage 
work but it don't do to fool with such fellows. If there 
was any killing to be done we meant to do it ourselves. 

About an hour before sunset they heard Finnegan 
and his companion crawling through the stunted 
bushes at the foot of the clay hill. The men started 
to go upstream. 

" We are going to lose them," Roosevelt whis- 
pered; " they are not coming to camp." 

" I think," answered Sewall, " they are looking 
for the camp smoke." 

He was evidently right, for suddenly they saw it 
and came straight through the sagebrush toward the 
watchers. Roosevelt and his men watched them for 
some minutes as they came nonchalantly toward 
them, the barrels of their rifles glinting in the sun- 
light. Now they were forty yards away, now thirty, 
now twenty. 



CAPTURE OF THE THIEVES 377 

" Hands up! " 

The half-breed obeyed, but for an instant Finne- 
gan hesitated, glaring at his captors with wolfish 
eyes. Roosevelt walked toward him, covering the 
center of the man's chest to avoid over-shooting 
him. 

" You thief, put up your hands! " 

Finnegan dropped his rifle with an oath and put 
up his hands. 

They searched the thieves and took away their 
weapons. **If you'll keep quiet," said Roosevelt, 
"and not try to get away, you'll be all right. If 
you try anything we'll shoot you." 

This was language which the thieves understood, 
and they accepted the situation. Sewall took an old 
double-barrel ten-gauge Parker shot-gun and stood 
guard. 

Dow was a little uneasy about the gun. 

" The right-hand barrel goes off very easily," he 
warned Sewall. " It's gone off with me several 
times when I did not mean it to, and if you are 
going to cover the men with it you better be care- 
ful." 

"I'll be careful," remarked Sewall in his deliber- 
ate fashion, " but if it happens to go off, it will 
make more difference to them than it will to me." 

They camped that night where they were. Hav- 
ing captured their men, they were somewhat in a 
quandary how to keep them. The cold was so 
intense that to tie them tightly hand and foot 
meant in all likelihood freezing both hands and feet 



378 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

off during the night; there was no use tying them 
at all, moreover, unless they tied them tightly 
enough to stop in part the circulation. Roosevelt 
took away everything from the thieves that might 
have done service as a weapon, and corded his 
harvest in some bedding well out of reach of the 
thieves. 

" Take off your boots! " he ordered. 

It had occurred to him that bare feet would 
make any thought of flight through that cactus 
country extremely uninviting. The men surrendered 
their boots. Roosevelt gave them a buffalo robe in 
return and the prisoners crawled under it, thor- 
oughly cowed. 

Captors and captives started downstream in the 
two boats the next morning. The cold was bitter. 
Toward the end of the day they were stopped by a 
small ice- jam which moved forward slowly only to 
stop them again. They ran the boats ashore to 
investigate, and found that the great Ox-Bow jam, 
which had moved past Elkhorn a week ago, had 
come to a halt and now effectually barred their way. 
They could not possibly paddle upstream against 
the current; they could not go on foot, for to do 
so would have meant the sacrifice of all their 
equipment. They determined to follow the slow- 
moving mass of ice, and hope, meanwhile, for a 
thaw. 

They continued to hope; day after weary day 
they watched in vain for signs of the thaw that 
would not come, breaking camp in the morning 



MAROONED 379 

on one barren point, only to pitch camp again in 
the evening on another, guarding the prisoners 
every instant, for the trouble they were costing 
made the captors even more determined that, 
whatever was lost, Finnegan and Company should 
not be lost. 

Roosevelt's journal for those days tells the stor}': 

April I. Captured the three boat-thieves. 

April 2. Came on with our prisoners till hung up by 
ice- jam. 

April 3. Hung up by ice. 

April 4. Hung up by ice. 

April 5. Worked down a couple of miles till again 
hung up by ice. 

April 6. Worked down a couple of miles again to 
tail of ice-jam. 

Their provisions ran short. They went after 
game, but there was none to be seen, no beast or 
bird, in that barren region. The addition to their 
company had made severe inroads on their larder 
and it was not long before they were all reduced 
to unleavened bread made with muddy water. 
The days were utterly tedious, and were made 
only slightly more bearable for Roosevelt by 
Tolstoy's " Anna Karenina " and Matthew Arnold, 
interlarded with " The History of the James 
Brothers," which the thieves quite properly carried 
among their belongings. And the thieves had to be 
watched every minute, and the wind blew and 
chilled them to the bone. 

Roosevelt thought that it might be pleasant 



38o ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

under certain circumstances to be either a Dakota 
sheriff or an Arctic explorer. But he did not find 
great joy in being both at the same time. 

When the flour was nearly gone, Roosevelt and 
his men had a consultation. 

" We can't shoot them," said Roosevelt, " and 
we can't feed them. It looks to me as though we'd 
have to let them go." 

Sewall disagreed. " The flour'll last a day or 
two more," he said, " and it's something to know 
that if we're punishing ourselves, we're punishing 
the thieves also." 

" Exactly! " cried Roosevelt. " We'll hold on to 
them!" 

The next day Sewall, on foot, searched the sur- 
rounding region far and wide for a ranch, and found 
none. The day after, Roosevelt and Dow covered 
the country on the other side of the river, and at 
last came on an outlying cow-camp of the Diamond 
C Ranch, where Roosevelt secured a horse. 

It was a wiry, rebellious beast. 

" The boss ain't no bronco-buster," remarked 
Dow, apologetically, to the cowboys. 

But " the boss " managed to get on the horse 
and to stay on. Dow returned to Sewall and the 
thieves, while Roosevelt rode fifteen miles to a ranch 
at the edge of the Killdeer Mountains. There he 
secured supplies and a prairie-schooner, hiring the 
ranchman himself, a rugged old plainsman, to drive 
it to the camp by the ice-bound river. Sewall and 
Dow, now thoroughly provisioned, remained with 



CROSS COUNTRY TO JAIL 381 

the boats. Roosevelt with the thieves started for 
the nearest jail, which was at Dickinson. 

It was a desolate two days' journey through a 
bleak waste of burnt, blackened prairie, and over 
rivers so rough with ice that they had to take the 
wagon apart to cross. Roosevelt did not dare abate 
his watch over the thieves for an instant, for they 
knew they were drawing close to jail and might 
conceivably make a desperate break any minute. 
He could not trust the driver. There was nothing 
for it but to pack the men into the wagon and to 
walk behind with the Winchester. 

Hour after hour he trudged through the ankle- 
deep mud, hungry, cold, and utterly fatigued, but 
possessed by the dogged resolution to carry the 
thing through, whatever the cost. They put up at 
the squalid hut of a frontier granger overnight, but 
Roosevelt, weary as he was, did not dare to sleep. 
He crowded the prisoners into the upper bunk and 
sat against the cabin door all night, with the 
Winchester across his knees. 

Roosevelt's journal gives the stages of his pro- 
gress. 

April 7. Worked down to C Diamond Ranch. Two 
prairie chickens. 

April 8. Rode to Killdeer Mountains to arrange for 
a wagon which I hired. 

April 9. Walked captives to Killdeer Mountains. 
April 10. Drove captives in wagon to Captain Brown's 
ranch. 

" What I can't make out," said the ranchman 



382 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

from the Killdeers, with a puzzled expression on 
his deeply wrinkled, tough old face, which Sewall 
said '* looked like the instep of an old boot that had 
lain out in the weather for years," — " what I 
can't make out is why you make all this fuss instead 
of hanging 'em offhand." 

Roosevelt grinned, and the following evening, 
after a three-hundred-mile journey, deposited three 
men who had defied the laws of Dakota in the jail 
at Dickinson. 

He was not a vision of beauty as he emerged from 
the jail to find a place to scrape off two weeks' 
accumulation of Dakota mud. His feet were in bad 
shape from the long march through the gumbo, and 
he asked the first man he met where he could find 
a physician. By a curious coincidence the man he 
addressed happened to be the only physician within 
a hundred and fifty miles in any direction. It was 
Dr. Stickney. 

They had heard of each other, and Roosevelt was 
glad, for more reasons than one, to follow him to 
his ofiice. For the quiet man with the twinkling 
eyes, who combined the courage and the humanness 
of a cowpuncher with the unselfish devotion of a 
saint, was a great figure in the Bad Lands. Like 
Roosevelt he was under thirty. 

The doctor, in after years, told of that morning's 
visit. " He did not seem worn out or unduly tired," 
he said. " He had just come from the jail, having 
deposited his prisoners at last, and had had no sleep 
for forty-eight hours, and he was all teeth and eyes; 



ARRIVAL IN DICKINSON 383 

but even so he seemed a man unusually wide awake. 
You could see he was thrilled by the adventures he 
had been through. He did not seem to think he 
had done anything particularly commendable, but 
he was, in his own phrase, ' pleased as Punch * at 
the idea of having participated in a real adventure. 
He was just like a boy. 

" We talked of many things that day while I 
was repairing his blistered feet. He impressed me 
and he puzzled me, and when I went home to lunch, 
an hour later, I told my wife that I had met the 
most peculiar, and at the same time the most 
wonderful, man I had ever come to know. I could 
see that he was a man of brilliant ability and I 
could not understand why he was out there on the 
frontier. I had heard his name and I had read 
something of his work in the New York Legislature 
and in the Republican Convention, two years 
previous, and it seemed to me that he belonged, 
not here on the frontier, but in the East, in the 
turmoil of large affairs." 

I got the three horse-thieves in fine style [Roosevelt 
wrote to Lodge]. My two Maine men and I ran down 
the river three days in our boat, and then came on their 
camp by surprise. As they knew there was no other 
boat on the river but the one they had taken, and as 
they had not thought of our building another, they were 
completely taken unawares, one with his rifle on the 
ground, and the others with theirs on their shoulders; 
so there was no fight, nor any need of pluck on our part. 
We simply crept noiselessly up and rising, when only a 
few yards distant, covered them with the cocked rifles 



384 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

while I told them to throw up their hands. They saw 
that we had the drop on them completely, and I guess 
they also saw that we surely meant shooting if they 
hesitated, and so their hands went up at once. We kept 
them with us nearly a week, being caught in an ice-jam; 
then we came to a ranch where I got a wagon, and I 
sent my two men on downstream with the boat, while 
I took the three captives overland a two days' journey 
to a town where I could give them to the sheriff. I was 
pretty sleepy when I got there, as I had to keep awake 
at night a good deal in guarding; and we had gotten 
out of food and the cold had been intense. 

To his sister Corinne he admitted that he was 
well satisfied to part from his prisoners. 

I was really glad to give them up to the sheriff this 
morning [he writes from Dickinson], for I was pretty 
well done out with the work, the lack of sleep, and the 
constant watchfulness, but I am as brown and as tough 
as a pine knot and feel equal to anything. 

It happened that the editor of the Herald of 
Newburyport, Massachusetts, had a friend in 
Dickinson who occasionally sent him news of the 
frontier which he printed as the " Dickinson 
(Dakota) Letter to the Newburyport Herald." 

To illustrate what manner of men we need [he wrote 
during the week following the successful conclusion of 
Roosevelt's adventure], I will relate an incident which is 
to the point. I presume you are all acquainted, through 
the newspapers, with the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, who 
is quite prominent in New York politics and society. 
He owns a ranch on the Little Missouri, about eighty 
miles northwest from here, and created quite a stir last 



THE ONLY DAMN FOOL 385 

Sunday by bringing to town three horse-thieves whom he 
had captured with the help of two of his " cow men." 

Thereupon follows the story of the capture and 
jaiHng of Finnegan and Company. 

When I saw him [the correspondent continues]. Mr. 
Roosevelt had been on the *' trail " for three weeks, and 
wore a cowboy's hat, corduroy jacket, flannel shirt, 
and heavy shoes, but was in excellent health and spirits. 

Said he, "I don't know how I look, but I feel first- 
rate! " 

The next morning he appeared in the justice's court, 
saw the outlaws indicted, and a little later took the train 
bound west, for his " cow camp." I had never seen 
Mr. Roosevelt before, although I had read many articles 
from his pen; and when I left home I had no idea of 
meeting a gentleman of his standing on the frontier 
masquerading in the character of an impromptu sheriff. 
But, only such men of courage and energy can hope to 
succeed in this new, beautiful, but undeveloped country. 

The justice of the peace who indicted the thieves 
was Western Starr. He turned out to be an old ac- 
quaintance of Roosevelt's, a classmate in the Co- 
lumbia Law School. The coincidence gave an added 
flavor to the proceeding. 

In Medora there seemed to be only one opinion 
concerning Roosevelt's adventure, though it was 
variously expressed. 

" Roosevelt," said his friend, John Simpson, a 
Texan, who was owner of the " Hash-knife " 
brand and one of the greatest cattlemen in the 
region, '* no one but you would have followed 
those men with just a couple of cow-hands. You 
are the only real damn fool in the county." 



386 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The rest of the population echoed the bewildered 
query of the teamster from the Killdeers. " Why 
didn't you kill them? " every one asked. " They 
would have killed you." 

" I didn't come out here to kill anybody," 
Roosevelt answered. "All I wanted to do was to 
defend myself and my property. There wasn't any 
one around to defend them for me, so I had to do 
it myself." 

And there the matter rested. But the people of Me- 
dora began to see a little more clearly than they had 
ever seen before the meaning of government by law.^ 

» The thieves were tried at Mandan in August, 1886. The German, 
known as "Dutch Chris," was acquitted, but Finnegan, and Bern- 
stead, known as "the half-breed," were sentenced to twenty-five 
months in the Bismarck Penitentiary. Finnegan glared at Roosevelt 
as he passed him in the court room. "If I'd had any show at all," he 
cried, "you'd have sure had to fight!" 

That was no doubt true, but his anger evidently wore off in the cool 
of the prison, for a little later he wrote Roosevelt a long and friendly 
epistle, which was intended to explain many things: 

In the first place I did not take your boat Mr. Roosevelt because I 
wanted to steal something, no indeed, when I took that vessel I was la- 
bouring under the impression, die dog or eat the hachette. . . . When I 
was a couple of miles above your ranch the boat I had sprung a leak and I 
saw I could not make the Big Missouri in it in the shape that it was in. I 
thought of asking assistance of you, but I supposed you had lost some 
saddles and blamed me for taking them. Now there I was with a leaky 
boat and under the circumstances what was I two do, two ask you for 
help, the answer I expected two get was two look down the mouth of a 
Winchester. I saw your boat and made up my mind two get possession of 
it. I was bound two get out of that country cost what it might, when 
people talk lynch law and threaten a persons life, I think that it is about 
time to leave. I did not want to go back up river on the account that I 
feared a mob. ... I have read a good many of your sketches of ranch 
life in the papers since I have been here, and they interested me deeply. 
Yours sincerely. 

&c 

P.S. Should you stop over at Bismarck this fall make a call to the 
Prison. I should be glad to meet you. 



XXIII 

Oh, I am a Texas cowboy, light-hearted, brave, and free, 
To roam the wide, wide prairie, 'tis always joy to me. 
My trusty little pony is my companion true. 
O'er creeks and hills and rivers he's sure to pull me through. 

When threatening clouds do gather and herded lightnings flash, 
And heavy rain drops splatter, and rolling thunders crash; 
What keeps the herds from running, stampeding far and wide? • 
The cowboy's long, low whistle and singing by their side. 

Cowboy song 

By a curious coincidence the culmination of Roose- 
velt's dramatic exposition of the meaning of govern- 
ment by law coincided In point of time precisely 
with the passing of the Bad Lands out of a state of 
primeval lawlessness Into a condition resembling 
organized government. 

Since the preceding summer, Packard had, In the 
columns of the Cowboy , once more been agitating 
for the organization of Billings County. The con- 
ditions, which In the past had militated against 
the proposal, were no longer potent. The lawless 
element was still large, but It was no longer in the 
majority. For a time a new and naive objection 
made Itself widely heard. The stock-growers pro- 
tested that If the county were organized, they would 
be taxed! The Mandan Pioneer explained that, 
according to the laws of Dakota Territory, the 
nearest organized county was authorized to tax all 
the cattle and other stock In Billings County, and 
that " the only possible difference that could result 



388 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

in organization would be to keep the taxes at home 
and allow them to be expended for home improve- 
ments such as roads, bridges, schoolhouses, and 
public buildings." The cattlemen were not in a 
position to explain publicly what they probably 
meant, namely, that a board of county commis- 
sioners and a tax assessor sitting in Medora would 
have far less difficulty than a similar group sitting 
a hundred and fifty miles east in Mandan in follow- 
ing the mysterious movements of their cattle during 
the season when assessments were made. An active 
agent of the county might conceivably note that 
when Billings County, Dakota, was making its 
assessments, the herds could generally be found in 
Fallon County, Montana, and that when Fallon 
County was making its assessments, the cattle were 
all grazing in Billings. But even in the Bad Lands 
it was no longer politic to protest openly against 
what was palpably the public welfare, and the 
petition for the organization of the county received 
the necessary signatures, and was sent to the gov- 
ernor. " This is a step in the right direction," patro- 
nizingly remarked the Mandan Pioneer. " Billings 
County is rich enough and strong enough to run its 
own affairs." 

Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris had been active in 
the work of organization, and were eager to "run " 
Bill Sewall for County commissioner. But that 
shrewd individual pleaded unfitness and lack of time 
and refused to be cajoled into becoming a candidate. 

There is some doubt concerning the exact date 



MEDORA'S FIRST ELECTION 389 

of the first elefction. Roosevelt's diary would in- 
dicate that it was held on April 12th, but the 
paragraph printed in the Minneapolis Tribune of 
April 15th would indicate that it was held on the 
14th. Both statements are probably wrong, and 
the election in all likelihood was held on the 13th. 

Roosevelt, having testified against the three 
thieves, returned to Medora late on the after- 
noon of election. There had been many threats 
that the party of disorder would import section 
hands from the neighboring railway stations to 
down the legions of the righteous. An especial 
watcher had been set at the polling-places. It was 
none other than Hell-Roaring Bill Jones. He was 
still on most cordial terms with his old intimates, 
the ruffians who congregated at Bill Williams's 
saloon, but he liked Roosevelt and the men who 
surrounded the young Easterner, and had cast in 
his lot with them. The efi"ectiveness, as a guardian 
of the peace, of the man who had at the beginning 
of his career in the Bad Lands been saloon " bouncer " 
for Bill Williams was notable. 

Roosevelt found a group of his friends at the 
polling-place. 

" Has there been any disorder? " he asked. 

" Disorder, hell! " said one of the men in the 
group. " Bill Jones just stood there with one hand 
on his gun and the other pointin' over toward the 
new jail whenever any man who didn't have the 
right to vote come near the polls. There was only 
one of them tried to vote, and Bill knocked him 



390 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

down. Lord!" he concluded meditatively, "the 
way that man fell! " 

" Well," struck in Bill Jones, " if he hadn't fell, 
I'd of walked round behind him to see what was 
proppin' him up! " 

The candidates for the various offices had been 
selected in a spirit of compromise between the two 
elements in the town, the forces of order securing 
every office except one. The county commission- 
ers elected were " Johnny " Goodall, a blacksmith 
named Dan Mackenzie, and J. L. Truscott, who 
owned a large ranch south of the Big Ox Bow. Van 
Driesche, the best of all valets, was elected treasurer, 
and Bill Dantz superintendent of schools; but the 
forces of disorder could afford to regard the result 
without apprehension, for they had been allowed 
to elect the sheriff; and they had elected Joe 
Morrill. 

Election night was lurid. Morrill, evidently de- 
siring to make a good impression without serious 
inconvenience to his friends, served notice immedi- 
ately after his election that there must be no " shoot- 
ing up " of the town, but " the boys " did not take 
Morrill very seriously. Fisher, who had a room in 
Mrs. McGeeney's hotel next to Joe Ferris's store, 
found the place too noisy for comfort, and adjourned 
to the office of the Bad Lands Cowboy. The little 
shack was unoccupied, for Packard, having recently 
married, had moved his residence into one of the 
deserted cantonment buildings on the western side 
of the river. Truscott had neglected to secure a 



THE CELEBRATION 391 

room in the hotel and Fisher invited him to join 
him in the Cowboy office. 

The day had been strenuous, and the two men 
were soon sound asleep. Fisher was awakened by 
a sharp object striking him in the face. An instant 
later he heard a round of shots, followed instantly 
by another shower of broken glass. He discovered 
that one of the windows, which faced the Tamblyn 
Saloon, was completely shattered. He shook Trus- 
cott. 

" I guess," he said, " we'd better look for some 
place not quite so convenient for a target." 

They adjourned to Fisher's room in Mrs. Mc- 
Geeney's hotel. After all, noise was preferable to 
bullets. 

" The boys " were full of apologies the next 
morning, declaring that they had not realized that 
the place was occupied. Packard, it seemed, had 
been publishing certain editorials shortly before 
dealing with the criminal responsibility of drunk- 
ards, and they just thought they would give the 
Cowboy a " touching up." 

Medora's new regime began with a call which 
Howard Eaton made upon Merrifield. 

" Now that we're organized, we'll have some fun 
with Deacon Cummins," said Eaton, with a chuckle. 

Eaton had apprehensions that the " Deacon " 
would ask for improvements, a road to his 'ranch, 
for instance, or possibly a bridge or two, so he sug- 
gested to Merrifield that they draw up a statement 
calculated to discourage any such aspirations. This 



392 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

was the statement as they finally submitted it to 
their fellow citizens: 

We the undersigned do hereby solemnly covenant 
and agree to hang, burn, or drown any man that will 
ask for public improvements made at the expense of 
the County. 

Eaton and Merrifield signed it, together with a 
dozen others; then they laid it before Mrs. Cum- 
mins's husband for his signature. " The Deacon " 
took it with extreme seriousness, and signed his 
name to it; and there was no call for improvements 
from the solemn couple at Tepee Bottom. 

The day after the election, the Little Missouri 
Stock Association held its semi-annual meeting. 
Roosevelt presided, " preserving," as he wrote to 
Lodge a day or so later, " the most rigid parlia- 
mentary decorum." He was elected a representa- 
tive of the Association at the meeting of the Mon- 
tana Stock growers' Association in Miles City, to 
be held a day or two later, and, after a hurried 
trip to Elkhorn Ranch with Merrifield, started 
west for Miles City, taking Sylvane with him. 

Miles City was a feverish little cow-town under 
ordinary circumstances, but in April of every year, 
when the cattlemen of Montana and western Da- 
kota gathered there for the annual meeting of 
the Montana Stockgrowers' Association, it was 
jubilant and noisy beyond description. For a week 
before the convention was called to order, stockmen 
from near and far began to arrive, bringing in their 
train thirsty and hilarious cowboys who looked 



MILES CITY MEETING 393 

upon the occasion mainly as a golden opportunity 
for a spree. They galloped madly up and down the 
wide, dusty streets at every hour of the day and 
night, knowing no sober moment as long as the 
convention lasted. 

Roosevelt and Sylvane arrived on April i8th, 
taking what quarters they could get in the Mac- 
queen House which was crowded to the doors and 
was granting nobody more than half a bed. The 
ceremonies began early next morning with a blast 
from the Fifth Infantry band from Fort Keogh, the 
army post two miles to the west. 

Promptly at 9:30 a.m. [runs the story in the Minne- 
apolis Tribune] a procession was formed in front of the 
Macqueen House, with the Fifth Infantry band at its 
head, followed by carriages containing the officers of 
the Association and ladies; next a cavalcade of wild 
cowboys just brought in from the adjacent ranges, 
followed by about 150 cowmen marching four abreast. 
The procession was about two and one-half blocks long 
from end to end, and the line of march was through 
the principal streets to the skating rink, where the public 
meetings of the Association are held. 

As the procession was nearing the rink, the horses 
of the foremost carriage, containing the president, 
vice-president, and secretary, took fright and dashed 
into the band. Both horses took the same side of the 
tongue and made things unpleasant. At this stage of 
the game President Bryan and others abandoned the 
carriage, and Secretary R. B. Harrison, with his large 
minute book, made a leap for life, and the subsequent "•' 

proceedings interested him no more. The procession then - 
broke up with a wild charge of cowboys, accompanied 

r 



< 



394 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

with such yells as would strike terror to the heart of 
the tenderfooted. 

The actual meeting of the Stockgrowers' Asso- 
ciation was, contrary to what riiight have been ex- 
pected from its prelude, a thoroughly dignified affair. 
RoosevelV was, as one of the other stockmen later 
.declared, ' rather inclined to listen and take the 
advice of older men '1;- but it was significant that 
he was, nevertheless, elected to the Executive 
Committee as the successor of the Marquis de 
Mores as repcesentative for Dakota Territory; and 
was appointed ta one or. two other committees of 
lesser importance. 

" Roosevelt was. of a restless, nervous, but 
aggressive disposition," said H. H. Hobson, of 
Great Falls, who was present at that meeting, 
" and took a keen interest in the proceedings. He 
was a great admirer of Granville Stuart, and was 
always on his side of every question." 

The absorbing issues before the convention were 
the Texas fever and the overstocking of the range. 
Feeling ran high, and " the debates," as Hobson 
later remarked, " were more than warm. Roose- 
velt," he added, " was at all times eager and ready 
to champion his side." 

At one of the sessions there was a fierce debate 
between two prominent cattlemen, which was 
renewed, after the meeting, at the Miles City Club. 
Each man had his hot partisans, who began to 
send messengers out for reenforcements. Most of 
the men were armed. It was clear that if hostilities 



ROOSEVELT'S CATTLE PROSPECTS 395 

once broke out, they would develop instantly into 
a miniature war. 

Roosevelt saw that the situation was critical, and 
jumped to his feet. " If you can't settle your own 
difficulties," he cried to the two men who had starte^ 
the quarrel, " why don't you fight it out? Fll 
referee." ' ^ 

The suggestion was received with favor. Roose- 
velt formed a ring and the two men expended their 
anger in a furious fist fight. Which man won, 
history does not record. The important point is 
that Roosevelt, by his resolute action, had prevented 
a fight with " six-shooters." 

I have just returned from the Stockmen's Convention 
in Miles City [Roosevelt wrote " Bamie " from Elkhorn 
on April 22d], which raw, thriving frontier town was for 
three days thronged with hundreds of rough-looking, 
broad-hatted men, numbering among them all the great 
cattle and horse raisers of the Northwest. I took my 
position very well in the convention, and indeed these > 
Westerners haye now pretty well accepted me as one of 
themselves, and as a representative stockman. I am on 
the Executive Committee of the Association, am Presi- 
dfent of the Dakota branch, etc. — all of which directly 
helps me in my business relations here. 

There is something almost touching in Roosevelt's 
efforts to persuade his sisters that his cattle venture 
was not the piece of wild recklessness which they 
evidently considered it. 

This winter has certainly been a marvelously good one 
for cattle [he wrote in another letter]. My loss has been 
so trifling as hardly to be worth taking into account; 



396 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

although there may be a number who have strayed off. 
I think my own expenses out here this summer will be 
very light indeed, and then we will be able to start all 
square with the beginning of the New Year. 

In another letter he wrote, " Unless we have 
a big accident, I shall get through this all right, if 
only I can get started square with no debt! " And 
a little later he sent " Bamie " a clipping from a 
review of his " Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," 
which referred to him as " a man of large and 
various powers in public matters as well as shrewd 
and enterprising in the conduct of business.'* '* I 
send the enclosed slip," he wrote, " on account of 
the awful irony of the lines I have underscored; 
send it to Douglas when you write him." 

" Douglas " was Douglas Robinson, the husband 
of Roosevelt's sister Corinne, and distinctly the 
business man of the family. 

Bill Sewall was apprehensive. " There was always 
a cloud over me," he said long afterward, " because I 
never could see where he was going to get his money. 
I tried to make him see it. He was going to buy 
land. I urged him not to. I felt sure that what he 
was putting into those cattle he was going to lose." 

Roosevelt admitted that spring that Sewall's 
conviction, that the cows would not be able in the 
long run to endure the hard winters, was not without 
reason. " Bill," he said, after he had made a care- 
ful study of the herd, " you're right about those 
cows. They're not looking well, and I think some 
of them will die." 



HIS UPPER LIP IS STIFF 397 

But on the whole the herd was in good condition. 
He had every right to beHeve that with average 
luck his investment would emphatically justify 
itself. 

While I do not see any great fortune ahead [he wrote 
to his sister Corinne], yet, if things go on as they are 
now going, and have gone for the past three years, I 
think I will each year net enough money to pay a good 
interest on the capital, and yet be adding to my herd 
all the time. I think I have more than my original 
capital on the ground, and this year I ought to be able 
to sell between two and three hundred head of steer and 
dry stock. 

Sewall as usual, was less sanguine. 

As for hard times [he wrote his brother that April] 
they are howling that here, and lots are leaving the coun- 
try. Lots more would if they could. We are all right. 
Roosevelt is the same good fellow he always has been 
and though I don't think he expects to make much, his 
upper lip is stiff and he is all right. 

Meanwhile, he was hammering ahead on his Life 
of Benton. He was a slow and rather laborious 
writer, but his persistence evidently atoned for his 
lack of speed in composition, for whereas, on April 
29th, he wrote his sister that he had written only 
one chapter and intended to devote "the next three 
weeks to getting this work fairly under way," by 
the 7th of June he announced that the book was 
"nearly finished." 

" Some days," Sewall related afterward, " he 
would write all day long; some days only a part of 
the day, just as he felt. He said sometimes he would 



398 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

get so he could not write. Sometimes he could not 
tell when a thing sounded right. Then he would 
take his gun and saunter off, sometimes alone, 
sometimes with me or Dow, if he was around." 

Occasionally he would " try out " a passage on 
Sewall. " Bill," he exclaimed one morning, " I am 
going to commit the unpardonable sin and make 
you sit down and listen to something I've written." 

Bill was willing. The passage was from the first 
chapter of the biography of the Tennessee statesman 
and dealt with the attitude of the frontier toward 
law and order and the rights of " the other fellow." 
Bill gave his approval and the passage stood. 

Day after day Roosevelt pushed forward into his 
subject, writing with zest, tempered by cool judg- 
ment. He did not permit an occasional trip to 
Medora to interrupt his work. He had a room over 
Joe Ferris's store, and after Joe and his wife had 
gone to bed, he would throw open the doors of the 
kitchen and the dining-room and walk to and fro 
hammering out his sentences. 

" Every once in a while," said Joe later, " every- 
thing would be quiet, then after fifteen minutes 
or so he would walk again as though he was walkin' 
for wages." 

Mrs, Ferris, who had a maternal regard for his 
welfare, was always careful to see that a pitcher 
of milk was in his room before the night's labors 
commenced; for Roosevelt had a way of working 
into the small hours. " The eight-hour law," he 
remarked to Lodge, " does not apply to cowboys "; 



COMPLETING BENTON 399 

nor, he might have added, to writers endeavoring 
to raise the wherewithal to pay for a hunting trip 
to the Coeur d'Alenes in the autumn. 

I wonder if your friendship will stand a very serious 
strain [he wrote Lodge, early in June]. I have pretty 
nearly finished Benton, mainly evolving him from my 
inner consciousness; but when he leaves the Senate in 
1850 I have nothing whatever to go by; and, being by 
nature both a timid, and, on occasions, by choice a 
truthful, man, I would prefer to have some foundation of 
fact, no matter how slender, on which to build the airy 
and arabesque superstructure of my fancy — especially 
as I am writing a history. Now I hesitate to give him a 
wholly fictitious date of death and to invent all of the 
work of his later years. Would it be too infernal a 
nuisance for you to hire some of your minions on the 
Advertiser (of course, at my expense) to look up, in a 
biographical dictionary or elsewhere, his life after he 
left the Senate in 1850? He was elected once to Congress; 
who beat him when he ran the second time; what was 
the issue; who beat him, and why, when he ran for 
Governor of Missouri; and the date of his death? I 
hate to trouble you; don't do it if it is any bother; but 
the Bad Lands have much fewer books than Boston has. 

The Executive Committee of the Montana Stock- 
growers' Association, of which Roosevelt was a 
member, had, in order to unify the work of the 
rounding-up of the cattle throughout Montana and 
w^estern Dakota, issued directions at its meeting in 
April for the delimitation of the various round-up 
districts and the opening of the round-ups. The 
round-up for " District No. 6," which included the 
valley of the Little Missouri, 



400 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

commences [so ran the order] at Medora, May 25, 1886; 
works down the Little Missouri to the mouth of Big 
Beaver Creek; thence up the Big Beaver to its head; 
thence across to the Little Beaver at the crossing of 
the old government road (Keogh trail); thence down 
Little Beaver to its mouth; thence across to Northern 
Hashknife Camp on Little Missouri, and down to 
Medora. John Goodall, foreman. 

Roosevelt apparently could not resist the tempta- 
tion which the round-up offered, especially as Its 
course would take him back in the direction of 
Elkhorn, and he deserted his study and entered once 
more into what was to him the most fascinating 
activity of the cowboy's life. 

There were half a dozen wagons along [he wrote 
subsequently]. The saddle bands numbered about a 
hundred each; and the morning we started, sixty men 
in the saddle splashed across the shallow ford of the 
river that divided the plain where we had camped from 
the valley of the long winding creek up which we were 
first to work. 

By the 7th of June he was back at Elkhorn Ranch 
again on a flying visit. 

I will get a chance to send this note to-morrow [he 
wrote his sister ** Bamie "] by an old teamster who Is 
going to town. I have been on the round-up for a fort- 
night, and really enjoy the work greatly; in fact I am 
having a most pleasant summer, though I miss all of 
you very, very much. We breakfast at three and work 
from sixteen to eighteen hours a day counting night- 
guard; so I get pretty sleepy; but I feel as strong as a 
bear. I took along Tolstoy's " La Guerre et La Paix " 
which Madame de Mores had lent me; but I have 



THE SUMMER OF 1886 401 

had little chance to read it as yet. I am very fond of 
Tolstoy. 

In " The Wilderness Hunter " Roosevelt, two or 
three years later, told of that " very pleasant sum- 
mer " of 1886. 

I was much at the ranch, where I had a good deal of 
writing to do ; but every week or two I left, to ride among 
the line camps, or spend a few days on any round-up 
which happened to be in the neighborhood. 

These days of vigorous work among the cattle were 
themselves full of pleasure. At dawn we were in the 
saddle, the morning air cool in our faces; the red sun- 
rise saw us loping across the grassy reaches of prairie 
land, or climbing in single file among the rugged buttes. 
All forenoon we spent riding the long circle with the 
cowpunchers of the round-up; in the afternoon we 
worked the herd, cutting the cattle, with much break- 
neck galloping and dextrous halting and wheeling. Then 
came the excitement and hard labor of roping, throwing, 
and branding the wild and vigorous range calves; in 
a corral, if one was handy, otherwise in a ring of horse- 
men. Soon after nightfall we lay down, in a log hut or 
tent, if at a line camp ; under the open sky, if with the 
round-up wagon. 

After ten days or so of such work, in which every 
man had to do his full share, — for laggards and idlers, 
no matter who, get no mercy in the real and healthy 
democracy of the round-up, — I would go back to the 
ranch to turn to my books with added zest for a fort- 
night. Yet even during these weeks at the ranch there 
was some outdoor work; for I was breaking two or three 
colts. I took my time, breaking them gradually and 
gently, not, after the usual cowboy fashion, in a hurry, 
by sheer main strength and rough riding, with the 
attendant danger to the limbs of the man and very 



402 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

probable ruin to the manners of the horse. We rose 
early; each morning I stood on the low-roofed veranda, 
looking out under the line of murmuring, glossy-leaved 
cottonwoods, across the shallow river, to see the sun 
flame above the line of bluffs opposite. 

Almost every day he was off among the buttes 
or across the prairie with a rifle in his hand, shooting 
now a whitetail buck within a few hundred yards 
of the ranch-house; now a blacktail, in the hills 
behind. Occasionally, rising before dawn, he would 
hunt in the rolling prairie country ten or fifteen 
miles away, coming home at dusk with a prong- 
buck across his saddle-bow. Now and then he 
would take the ranch-wagon and one of the men, 
driving to some good hunting ground, and spend- 
ing a night or two, returning usually with two or 
three antelope; and not infrequently he would ride 
away by himself on horseback for a couple of days, 
lying at night, as he wrote, " under the shining and 
brilliant multitude of stars," and rising again in 
the chill dawn to crawl upon some wary goat of 
the high hills. 

After writing his sister on the 7th of June, he 
evidently stayed at the ranch for ten days to work 
on his Life of Benton. Then he was away with 
the round-up again. His diary succinctly records 
his progress: 

June 18. Rode to Medora on Sorrel Joe. 

June 19. Out on round-up with Maltese Cross wagon. 

June 20. Worked down to South Heart. 

June 21. Worked up Rocky Ridge. 

June 22. Worked to Davis Creek. 



C>t_-v^.X.'^- C. £. 



INFLUENCE OVER COWBOYS 403 

Early next morning Roosevelt was in Medora. 

The round-up is swinging over from the East to the 
West Divide [he wrote to Lodge]. I rode in to get my 
mail and must leave at once. We are working pretty 
hard. Yesterday I was in the saddle at 2 a.m., and except 
for two very hearty meals, after each of which I took a 
fresh horse, did not stop working till 8.15 p.m.; and was 
up at half-past three this morning. 

They worked next day down to Andrews Creek. 
While the round-up was camped at Andrews 

Creek an incident occurred which revealed Roose- 

I 

velt's influence over the cowpunchers, not alone of 
his own " outfit." Andrews Creek was not more 
than a mile from Medora, and after the day's w^ork 
was done, the cowboys naturally adjourned with 
much enthusiasm to that oasis for the thirsty. As 
the evening wore on, the men, as " Dutch Wan- 
nigan " remarked long afterward, " were getting 
kinda noisy." Roosevelt, who had also ridden to 
town, possibly to keep an eye on " the boys," heard 
the commotion, and, contrary to his usual habit, 
which was to keep out of such centers of trouble, 
entered the saloon where the revelry was in progress. 
" I don't know if he took a drink or not," said 
" Dutch Wannigan " afterward. " I never saw 
him take one. But he came in and he paid for the 
drinks for the crowd. ' One more drink, boys,' he 
says. Then, as soon as they had their drinks, he 
says, ' Come on,' and away they went. He just 
took the lead and they followed him home. By 
gollies, I never seen anything like it! " 



404 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The round-up now worked southward. Roose- 
velt's diary gives its course from day to day. 

June 24. To Gardiner Creek. 
June 25. To BuUion's Creek. 
June 26. Down Bullion's Creek. 
June 27. To Chimney Butte. 
June 28. Rode in to Medora. 

From Medora he wrote his sister Corinne: 

I have been off on the round-up for five weeks, taking 
a holiday of a few days when we had a cold snap, during 
which time I killed two elk and six antelopes, all the 
meat being smoke-dried and now hanging round the 
trees, till the ranch looks like an Indian encampment. 
Since June 24th, I have never once had breakfast as 
late as 4 o'clock. I have been in the saddle all the day 
and work like a beaver and am as happy and rugged as 
possible. 

To " Bamie " he wrote: 

If I did not miss all at home so much, and also my 
beautiful home, I would say that this free, open-air life, 
without any worry, was perfection. 

The round-up ended in Medora, where it had 
begun. 

You would hardly know my sunburned and wind- 
roughened face [Roosevelt wrote " Bamie "]. But I have 
really enjoyed it and am as tough as a hickory nut. 

He evidently did not think he needed any vaca- 
tion after the strenuous labors of the preceding 
weeks, for his diary records no interlude. 

June 29. Rode back to Elkhom Ranch with Merri- 
field. 



A BIG DAY 405 

June 30. Benton. , 

July I. Benton; rode out with Bill Rowe to get and 
brand calves. 

July 2. Benton; rode out with Bill Rowe after 
calves; got them into corral and branded them. Rode 
little black horse. 

July 3. Rode up to Medora on Manitou. 

Roosevelt had been invited to be the orator at 
Dickinson's first celebration of Independence Day, 
and, on the morning of the Fourth, accompanied 
by two New York friends, Lispenard Stewart and 
Dr. Taylor, and half the cowboys of Billings County, 
" jumped " an east-bound freight for the scene of 
the festivities. 

Dickinson was in holiday mood. The West 
Missouri slope had never celebrated the Fourth 
with fitting ceremonies before and Dickinson, which, 
with its seven hundred inhabitants, considered it- 
self somewhat of a metropolis, made up its mind to 
" spread itself." From near and far eager crowds 
streamed into the little town, on foot and on horse- 
back. The Press reported the celebration with zest: 

A BIG DAY 



The First Fourth of July Celebration 
in Dickinson a Grand Success 



An Epoch in the History of Our Town 
that Will Long be Remembered 



Addresses by Hon. Theodore Roosevelt 
and Hon. John A. Rea 



4o6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The first Fourth of July celebration, attempted in 
Dickinson, took place last Monday. It exceeded the 
anticipations of all and proved to be a grand success — 
a day that will long be remembered. The day dawned 
bright and cool. Early in the morning people began to 
arrive and by ten o'clock the largest crowd ever as- 
sembled in Stark County lined the principal streets. 
The train from the west brought a number of Medora 
people, amongst them Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, the 
orator of the day. 

The first exercise was the parade, consisting of three 
divisions, under charge of Chief Marshal Auld, assisted 
by C. S. Langdon and Western Starr. About ten o'clock 
every thmg was in readiness and the parade began to 
move, headed by the Dickinson Silver Cornet Band. 
Following the band were the lady equestriennes, a large 
number of ladies being in line. They were followed by 
the members of Fort Sumter Post G.A.R. and Onward 
Lodge R.R.B. Next came a beautifully decorated 
wagon drawn by four white horses, containing little 
girls dressed in white, representing the States of the 
Union. This was one of the most attractive features of 
the parade, and was followed by a display of reaping 
and other farm machinery. The " Invincibles "^ were 
next in line and created considerable mirth by their^ fan- 
tastic and grotesque appearance. Citizens in carriages 
and on horseback brought up the rear. After parading 
through the principal streets the procession marched to 
the public square and were dismissed. 

"The trouble with the parade," remarked Bill 
Dantz long after, "was that every one in town was 
so enthusiastic they insisted on joining the proces- 
sion, and there was no one to watch except two 
men who were too drunk to notice anything" ; which 
was Dantz's way of saying that the "first exercise" 
was eminently successful. 



}^ ORATORY 407 

Western Starr [continues the Press] was introduced by 
Dr. V. H, Stickney, master of ceremonies, and read the 
Declaration c»f Independence in a clear, forcible tone, 
after which th^ entire audience joined in singing that fa- 
miliar and patriotic song, " America." The people then 
partook of the free dinner prepared for the occasion. 
After dinner the people were called to order and Rev. 
E. C. Dayton offered up a prayer, followed by music by 
the band. 

The speech,$s followed. The first speaker was a 
typical politician of the old school. 

This is a big' country [he said]. At a dinner party 
of Americans in Paris during the Civil War this toast 
was offered by r; New Englander: "Here's to the United 
States, bounded on the north by British America, on the 
south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic, 
and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.'' 

An Ohio man followed with a larger notion of our 
greatness: "Here's to the United States, bounded on the 
north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, 
on the east by the rising sun, and on the west by the setting 
sun." 

It took the Dakota man, however, to rise to the great- 
ness of the subject: " / give you the United States, 
bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the 
south by the precession of the equinoxes, o?t the east by 
primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment.'" 

The politician proceeded with the eloquence of the 
professional "orator," and the audience applauded 
him vociferously. Then Roosevelt rose and spoke. 
He looked very slim and young and embarrassed. 

I am peculiarly glad [he said] to have an opportunity 
of addressing you, my fellow citizens of Dakota, on the 



4o8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LAWDS 

Fourth of July, because it always seems to me that those 
who dwell in a new territory, and whose actions, there- 
fore, are peculiarly fruitful, for good and for bad alike, 
in shaping the future, have in consequence peculiar 
responsibilities. You have already be.^n told, very 
truthfully and effectively, of the great g.fts and bless- 
ings you enjoy; and we all of us feel, must rightly and 
properly, that we belong to the greate>^t nation that 
has ever existed on this earth — a feelin-j-, I like to see, 
for I wish every American always to Peep the most 
intense pride in his country, and peopl^. But as you 
already know your rights and privileges'; so well, I am 
going to ask you to excuse me if I say a taw words to you 
about your duties. Much has been giv(:n to us, and so, 
much will be expected of us; and we must take heed to 
use aright the gifts entrusted to our car*^. 

The Declaration of Independence derived its peculiar 
importance, not on account of what America was, but 
because of what she was to become; she shared with 
other nations the present, and she yielded to them the 
past, but it was felt in return that to her, and to her 
especially, belonged the future. It is the same with us 
here. We, grangers and cowboys alike, have opened a 
new land ; and we are the pioneers, and as we shape the 
course of the stream near its head, our efforts have in- 
finitely more effect, in bending it in any given direction, 
than they would have if they were made farther along. 
In other words, the first comers in a land can, by their 
individual efforts, do far more to channel out the course 
in which its history is to run than can those who come 
after them; and their labors, whether exercised on the 
side of evil or on the side of good, are far more effective 
than if they had remained in old settled communities. 

So it is peculiarly incumbent on us here to-day so to act 
throughout our lives as to leave our children a heritage, for 
which we will receive their blessing and not their curse. 



ROOSEVELT ON AMERICANISM 409 

Stickney, sitting on the platform as presiding 
officer, was struck by the contrast which Roosevelt 
offered to the man who had preceded him. The 
first speaker had been " eloquent " in the accepted 
meaning of the word; Roosevelt was not consciously 
eloquent at all. He talked as he always talked, 
simply, directly, earnestly, emphatically. 

We have rights [he went on], but we have correlative 
duties; none can escape them. We only have the right 
to live on as free men, governing our own lives as we will, 
so long as we show ourselves worthy of the privileges we 
enjoy. We must remember that the Republic can only 
be kept pure by the individual purity of its members; 
and that if it become once thoroughly corrupted, it will 
surely cease to exist. In our body politic, each man is 
himself a constituent portion of the sovereign, and if the 
sovereign is to continue in power, he must continue to do 
right. When you here exercise your privileges at the 
ballot box, you are not only exercising a right, but you 
are also fulfilling a duty; and a heavy responsibility 
rests on you to fulfill your duty well. If you fail to work 
in public life, as well as in private, for honesty and 
uprightness and virtue, if you condone vice because the 
vicious man is smart, or if you in any other way cast 
your weight into the scales in favor of evil, you are just 
so far corrupting and making less valuable the birthright 
of your children. The duties of American citizenship 
are very solemn as well as very precious; and each one 
of us here to-day owes it to himself, to his children, and 
to all his fellow Americans, to show that he is capable of 
performing them in the right spirit. 
— It is not what we have that will make us a great nation ; 
it is the way in which we use it. 

I do not undervalue for a moment our material 



410 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

prosperity; like all Americans, I like big things; big 
prairies, big forests and mountains, big wheat-fields, 
railroads, — and herds of cattle, too, — big factories, 
steamboats, and everything else. But we must keep 
steadily in mind that no people were ever yet benefited 
by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue. It 
is of more importance that we should show ourselves 
honest, brave, truthful, and intelligent, than that we 
should own all the railways and grain elevators in the 
world. We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage 
a people ever received, and each one must do his part if 
we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good 
fortune. Here we are not ruled over by others, as in 
the case of Europe; we rule ourselves. All American 
citizens, whether born here or elsewhere, whether of 
one creed or another, stand on the same footing; we 
welcome every honest immigrant no matter from what 
country he comes, provided only that he leaves off his 
former nationality, and remains neither Celt nor Saxon, 
neither Frenchman nor German, but becomes an Amer- 
ican, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of 
American citizenship. 

When we thus rule ourselves, we have the responsi- 
bilities of sovereigns, not of subjects. We must never 
exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; 
we can continue to preserve them in but one possible 
way, by making the proper use of them. In a new portion 
of the country, especially here in the Far West, it is 
peculiarly important to do so; and on this day of all 
others we ought soberly to realize the weight of the 
responsibility that rests upon us. I am, myself, at heart 
as much a Westerner as an Easterner; I am proud, 
indeed, to be considered one of yourselves, and I address 
you in this rather solemn strain to-day, only because of 
my pride in you, and because your welfare, moral as 
well as material, is so near my heart. 



YOU WILL BE PRESIDENT 411 

It was a hilarious party of cowpunchers who took 
the afternoon train back to Medora. For a part 
of the brief journey Packard sat with Roosevelt 
discussing his speech. 

"It was during this talk," said Packard after- 
ward, " that I first realized the potential bigness of 
the man. One could not help believing he was in 
deadly earnest in his consecration to the highest 
ideals of citizenship. He had already made his 
mark in the New York Legislature. He was known 
as a fighter who dared to come out in the open and 
depend upon the backing of public opinion. He was 
reputed to be wealthy enough to devote his life to 
any work he chose, and I learned, on the return 
journey to the Bad Lands that day, that he believed 
he could do better work in a public and political 
way than in any other. My conclusion was im- 
mediate, and I said, ' Then you will become Presi- 
dent of the United States.* 

" One would suppose that I could remember the 
actual words he used in reply, but I cannot. I 
remember distinctly that he was not in the least 
surprised at my statement. He gave me the im- 
pression of having thoroughly considered the matter 
and to have arrived at the same conclusion that I 
had arrived at. I remember only this of what he 
said, * If your prophecy comes true, I will do my 
part to make a good one.' " 



XXIV 

The road is wide and the stars are out, and the breath of night is sweet, 
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet, 
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face, 
And leave the splendor of out-of-doors for a human dwelling-place. 

Joyce Kilmer 

A FEW days after the celebration in Dickinson, 
Roosevelt went East. The political sirens were 
calling. He was restless for something to do that 
would bring into service the giant's strength of 
which he was becoming increasingly conscious, and, 
incidentally, would give him an opportunity to 
win distinction. He had been half inclined to ac- 
cept an offer from Mayor Grace of New York to 
head the Board of Health, but Lodge, as Roosevelt 
wrote to his sister Corinne, thought it " infra dig,'' 
and he reluctantly rejected it. There were rumors 
in the air that he might have the Republican 
nomination for Mayor of New York if he wanted it. 
He went East, possibly for the purpose of investi- 
gating them, returning to Elkhorn early in August. 
Roosevelt was unquestionably restless. He loved 
the wild country, but he had tasted all the various 
joys and hardships it had to offer, and, although 
he said again and again that if he had no ties of 
affection and of business to bind him to the East, 
he would make Dakota his permanent residence, 
down in his heart he was hungering for a wider 
field of action. The frontier had been a challenge 



A TROOP OF ROUGH RIDERS 413 

to his manhood; now that he had stood every test 
it had presented to him, its glamour faded and he 
looked about for a sharper challenge and more ex- 
acting labors. 

For a few weeks that August he half hoped that 
he might find them on the field of battle. Sev- 
eral American citizens, among them a man named 
Cutting, had been arrested in Mexico, apparently 
illegally, and Bayard, who was President Cleve- 
land's Secretary of State, had been forced more 
than once to make vigorous protests. Relations 
became strained. The anti-Mexican feeling on the 
border spread over the whole of Texas, regiments 
were organized, and the whole unsettled region 
between the Missouri and the Rockies, which was 
inclined to look upon Mexico as the natural next 
morsel in the fulfillment of the nation's " manifest 
destiny," began to dream of war. 

Roosevelt, seeing how matters were tending, set 
about to organize a troop of cavalry in the Bad 
Lands. He notified the Secretary of War that it 
stood at the service of the Government. 

I have written to Secretary Endicott [Roosevelt 
wrote to Lodge on August loth], offering to try to raise 
some companies of horse-riflemen out here, in the event 
of trouble with Mexico. Won't you telegraph me at 
once if war becomes inevitable? Out here things are so 
much behindhand that I might not hear of things for 
a week. I have not the least idea there will be any 
trouble, but as my chances of doing anything in the future 
worth doing seem to grow continually smaller, I intend 
to grasp at every opportunity that turns up. 



414 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The cowboys were all eager for war, not caring 
much with whom. They were fond of adventure and 

to tell the truth [as Roosevelt wrote later], they were by 
no means averse to the prospect of plunder. News from 
the outside world came to us very irregularly, and often 
in distorted form, so that we began to think we might 
get involved in a conflict not only with Mexico, but with 
England also. One evening at my ranch the men began 
talking over English soldiers, so I got down " Napier " 
and read them several extracts from his descriptions of 
the fighting in the Spanish peninsula, also recounting as 
well as I could the great deeds of the British cavalry from 
Waterloo to Balaklava, and finishing up by describ- 
ing from memory the fine appearance, the magnificent 
equipment, and the superb horses of the Household 
Cavalry and of a regiment of hussars I had once seen. 

All of this produced much the same effect on my 
listeners that the sight of Marmion's cavalcade produced 
in the minds of the Scotch moss-troopers on the eve of 
Flodden; and at the end, one of them, who had been 
looking into the fire and rubbing his hands together, said, 
with regretful emphasis, " Oh, how I would like to kill 
one of them! " 

Roosevelt went to Bismarck and found the 
Territorial Governor friendly to his project. 

Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, the famous 
statesman, ranchman, and hunter [runs the story in 
the Bismarck Tribune], has been making inquiries since 
the announcement of the Mexican difficulties as to the 
available volunteer troops in the Northwest, and in 
the event of action being required, it is confidently be- 
lieved Mr. Roosevelt would tender to the Government 
the services of an entire regiment of cowboys, under his 
command. At a recent visit here he was assured of two 



PREMONITIONS OF TROUBLE 415 

companies of Dakota cowboys to accompany him. Mr. 
Roosevelt has been the captain of a company of militia 
in New York, and no better man could be found to lead 
the daring cowboys to a seat of war and no commander 
would have more effective troops. 

The war cloud blew over. Roosevelt evidently 
received a letter from Lodge explaining that the 
Mexican incident was of a trivial nature, for, on 
the 20th of August, he wrote him rather apolo- 
getically: 

I wrote as regards Mexico qua cowboy, not qua 
statesman; I know little of the question, but conclude 
Bayard is wrong, for otherwise It would be phenomenal; 
he ought to be idolized by the mugwumps. If a war had 
come off, I would surely have had behind me as utterly 
reckless a set of desperadoes as ever sat in the saddle. 

It is no use saying that I would like a chance at some- 
thing I thought I could really do; at present I see 
nothing whatever ahead. However, there is the hunting 
in the fall, at any rate. 

The season which began with FInnegan and 
Company was richer in varied experiences than it 
was In financial returns. Roosevelt recognized that 
there were already too many cattlemen in the 
business to make large profits possible. 

In certain sections of the West [he told a reporter of 
the Mandan Pioneer in July] the losses this year are 
enormous, owing to the drought and over-s'tocking. 
Each steer needs from fifteen to twenty-five acres, but 
they are crowded on very much thicker, and the cattle- 
men this season have paid the penalty. Betv\^een the 
drought, the grasshoppers, and the late frosts, ice form- 



4i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

ing as late as June loth, there is not a green thing in all 
the region I have been over. A stranger would think a 
donkey could not live there. The drought has been very 
bad throughout the region, and there is not a garden 
in all of it. 

Sewall was aware of that fact to his sorrow, for 
the garden he himself had planted and tended with 
infinite care had died between dawn and dusk on 
that memorable Fourth of July on which Roosevelt 
addressed the citizens of Dickinson. 

They say dry years are best for cattle [he wrote his 
brother]. If so, this must be a nice one and they do seem 
to be doing well so far, but if we have much snow next 
winter it looks to me as if they would have short picking. 

The prospect was not engaging. But, though 
Roosevelt was not getting much financial return 
on his rather generous investment, he was getting 
other things, for him at this time of far greater 
value. He who had been w^ak in body and subject 
to racking illnesses had in these three years devel- 
oped a constitution as tough and robust as an 
Indian's. He had achieved something beside this. 
Living, talking, working, facing danger, and suffer- 
ing hardships with the Sewalls and the Dows, the 
Ferrises and the Langs, and Merrifield and Packard 
and Bill Dantz and Hell-Roaring Bill Jones, and 
countless other stalwart citizens of the Bad Lands, 
he had come very close to the heart of the " plain 
American." He loved the companions of his joys 
and labors, and they in turn regarded him with 
an admiration and devotion which was all the 



THE HOLD-UP 417 

deeper because of the amazing fact that he had 
come from the ranks of the " dudes." 

They admired him for his courage and his feats 
of endurance, but, being tender-hearted themselves, 
they loved him for his tenderness, which had a way 
that they approved, of expressing itself, not in words, 
but in deeds. Bill Sewall had a little girl of three, 
'' a forlorn little mite," as Roosevelt described her 
to *' Bamie," and it was Roosevelt who sent the 
word East which transported the child, that had 
neither playmates nor toys, into a heaven of delight 
with picture blocks and letter blocks, a little horse 
and a rag doll. 

His warm human sympathy found expression 
in a dramatic manner a day or two before his 
departure late that August for the Coeur d'Alenes. 
He was rounding up some cattle with his men near 
Sentinel Butte, twenty miles west of Medora, when 
word came that a cowpuncher named George 
Frazier had been struck by lightning and killed, 
and that his body had been taken to Medora. 
Frazier belonged to the " outfit " of the Marquis 
de Mores, but he had worked for Roosevelt twc 
years previous, digging post-holes with George 
Myers in June, 1884. Roosevelt knew that the 
man had no relatives in that part of the world, to 
see that a fitting disposition of the body was made, 
and instantly expressed his determination to take 
charge of the arrangements for the funeral. 

" We will flag the next train and go to Medora," 
he said. 



4i8 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

The next train, they knew, was " No. 2," the 
finest train running over the road. It did not, on 
the surface, look probable that it would stop at a 
desolate spot in the prairie to permit a handful of 
cowboys to get on. " They won't stop here for 
nuthin'," one of the men insisted. " By Godfrey, 
they'll have to stop! " Roosevelt retorted, and sent 
a man down to the track to flag the train. 

The engineer saw the warning signal and slowed 
down, but did not stop. The cowboys dashed along- 
side the engine, firing shots in the air. The engineer, 
believing that he was being held up by bandits and 
that the next shot might be aimed at himself, 
brought the train to a standstill. There was a wild 
scramble among the passengers; even the train crew 
expected the worst. Valuables were hurriedly se- 
creted. "I don't believe," remarked George Myers 
afterward, " some of the passengers ever did find 
all the things that was hid away." 

Leaving their horses in charge of one of the cow- 
boys, Roosevelt, followed by Sylvane Ferris, Merri- 
field, Myers, and Johnny Goodall, boarded the train. 
The conductor was resigned by this time to a hold- 
up; but when he discovered the actual nature of 
their mission, he flew into a rage and threatened to 
put them all off. 

" You be good," cried Roosevelt, " or you'll be 
the one to get ofif! " His vigorous advice was 
supplemented by impressive injunctions from other 
members of the party. When they finally did get 
off, it was at Medora. 



THE CCEUR D'ALENES 419 

A salvo of profanity from the train crew followed 
them. "You'll hear from this!" thundered the 
conductor. They did not hear from it. It would 
not have greatly disturbed Roosevelt if they had. 
He opened a subscription to cover the expenses of 
the funeral. Everybody " chipped in," and the 
unfortunate received the burial that a God-fearing 
cowpuncher deserved. 

Roosevelt went with Merrifield west to the Cceur 
d'Alenes, in northern Idaho, almost immediately 
after Frazier's funeral. He was to meet a hunter 
named John Willis, who was to take him and 
Merrifield out after white goat. He had never met 
Willis, but his correspondence with him had sug- 
gested possibilities of interest beside the chase. 
Roosevelt had written Willis in July that he had 
heard of his success in pursuit of the game of the 
high peaks. " If I come out," he concluded, " do 
you think it will be possible for me to get a goat? " 

The answer he received was written on the back 
of his own letter and was quite to the point. " If 
you can't shoot any better than you can write, I 
don't think it will be." 

Roosevelt's reply came by wire. " Consider your- 
self engaged." 

It would have been strange if, after this epistolary 
exchange, the two men should not have been rather 
curious about each other's personalities. Roosevelt, 
descending from the train at a way-station in the 
mountains, found a huge, broad-shouldered man his 
own age, waiting for him. The man was not over- 



420 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

cordial. He did not, he later admitted, regard 
Roosevelt's corduroy knee-pants with favor. 

Roosevelt, knowing how to catch a hunter, showed 
Willis his guns. "Will you go on a trip with me? " 
he asked. 

" I am going to start out day after to-morrow for 
a three or four weeks' hunt," Willis answered. " If 
you want to go along as my guest, you are welcome 
to. But I want to tell you before we go, I won't 
take any booze." 

" Why do you say that? " asked Roosevelt, 
thoroughly interested in this strange creature. 

" Why, I've an idea you are some brewer's son 
who's made a lot of money. You look as if you'd 
been raised on beer." 

Roosevelt roared with delight. " I want to make 
a contract with you," he said. " I will give you 
twenty-five dollars for everything that you show me 
in the way of game." 

" I don't want it," said Willis gruffly. 

" Then I will buy the grub." 

" All the grub I'll take along won't amount to 
more than three or four dollars — a hundred pounds 
of flour, twenty-five pounds of bacon, dried apples, 
and black tea. That's all you'll get." 

" By George," cried Roosevelt, " that's fine! " 

" You can't stand a trip like this," Willis re- 
marked with deadly frankness. 

" You take me on the trip and I'll show you. I 
can train myself to walk as far as you can." 

Willis doubted it and said so. 



HUNTING WHITE GOATS 421 

They camped far up in the mountains, hunting 
day after day through the deep woods just below 
the timber-Hne. Roosevelt and Merrifield were ac- 
customed to life in the saddle, and although they 
had varied it with an occasional long walk after 
deer or sheep, they were quite unable to cope with 
Willis when it came to mountaineering. The climb- 
ing was hard, the footing was treacherous, and the 
sharp rocks tore their moccasins into ribbons. 
There was endless underbrush, thickets of prickly 
balsam or laurel — but there were no goats. 

At last, one mid-afternoon, as he was supporting 
himself against a tree, halfway across a long land- 
slide, Roosevelt suddenly discovered one of the 
beasts he was after, a short distance away, making 
his way down a hill, looking for all the world like 
a handsome tame billy. He was in a bad position 
for a shot, and as he twisted himself about he dis- 
lodged some pebbles. The goat, instantly alert, 
fled. Roosevelt fired, but the shot went low, only 
breaking a fore-leg. 

The three men raced and scrambled after the 
fleeing animal. It leaped along the hillside for 
nearly a mile, then turned straight up the mountain. 
They followed the bloody trail where it went up 
the sharpest and steepest places, skirting the clifi"s 
and precipices. 

Roosevelt, intent on the quarry, was not what 
Bill Sewall would have called " over-cautious " 
in the pursuit. 

He was running along a shelving ledge when a 



422 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

piece of loose slate with which the ledge was covered 
slipped under his foot. He clutched at the rock 
wall, he tried to fling himself back, but he could 
not recover himself. 

He went head first over the precipice. 

Roosevelt's luck was with him that day. He fell 
forty or fifty feet into a tall pine, bounced through 
it, and landed finally, not uncomfortably, in a thick 
balsam, somewhat shaken and scratched, but with 
no bones broken and with his rifle still clutched 
in his hand. 

From above came the hoarse voice of John 
Willis. " Are you hurt? " he asked. 

" No," answered Roosevelt, a trifle breathless. 

" Then come on! " 

Roosevelt " came on," scrambling back up the 
steep height he had so swiftly descended, and raced 
after the guide. He came upon the goat at last, but 
winded as he was, and with the sweat in his eyes, 
he shot too high, cutting the skin above the spine. 
The goat plunged downhill and the hunters plunged 
after him, pursuing the elusive animal until darkness 
covered the trail. 

" Now," said Willis, " I expect you are getting 
tired." 

" By George," said Roosevelt, " how far have 
we gone? " 

" About fifteen or twenty miles up and down the 
mountains." 

" If we get that goat to-morrow, I will give you 
a hundred dollars." . 



JOHN WILLIS 423 

" I don't want a hundred dollars. But we'll 
get the goat." 

Roosevelt brought him down the next day at 
noon. 

Roosevelt spent two weeks with Willis in the 
mountains. It was a rich experience for the East- 
erner, but for the tall Missourian it proved to be 
even more. Willis was a child of the frontier, who 
had knocked about between the Rio Grande and 
the Canadian border ever since his boyhood, do- 
ing a hundred different things upon which the law 
and civilized men were supposed to look with dis- 
approval.^ 

To this odd child of nature, bred in the wilderness, 
Roosevelt opened the door to a world which John 
Willis did not know existed. 

" He was a revelation to me," said Willis long 
afterward. " He was so well posted on everything. 
He was the first man that I had ever met that really 
knew anything. I had just been with a lot of 
roughnecks, cowpunchers, horse-thieves, and that 
sort. Roosevelt would explain things to me. He 
told me a lot of things." 

Among other things, Roosevelt told Willis some 
of his experiences in the New York Assembly. 
Huge sums had been offered him to divert him from 
this course or that which certain interests regarded 
as dangerous to their freedom of action. To Willis 
it was amazing that Roosevelt should not have 

^ Willis was a great teller of tales. See Hunting the Grizzly, by 
Theodore Roosevelt (The Sagamore Series, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 
216 ff.), for the most lurid of his yarns. 



424 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

accepted what was offered to him, and he began to 
be aware of certain standards of virtue and honor. 

To Roosevelt the trip was a splendid adventure; 
to Willis it proved a turning-point in his life.^ 

Roosevelt returned to Elkhorn the middle of 
September, to find that Sewall and Dow had come 
to a momentous decision. Dow had, during his 
absence, taken a train-load of cattle to Chicago, 
and had found that the best price he was able to 
secure for the hundreds of cattle he had taken to 
the market there was less by ten dollars a head 
than the sum it had cost to raise and transport 
them. Sewall and Dow had " figured things over," 
and had come to the conclusion that the sooner 
they terminated their contract with Roosevelt the 
less money he would lose. They recognized that 
they themselves were safe enough, for by the " one- 
sided trade," as Sewall called it, which Roosevelt 
had made with them, they were to share in what- 
ever profits there were, and in case there were no 
profits were to receive wages. But neither of them 
enjoyed the part he was playing in what seemed to 
both of them a piece of hopeless business. 

Roosevelt himself had been wondering whether 
it was wise to allow the two backwoodsmen to 
continue in an enterprise in which the future was 
so clouded and full of the possibilities of disaster. 

^ When Roosevelt came to Helena in 191 1, John Willis was one 
of the crowd that greeted him. Willis clapped Roosevelt on the 
back familiarly. " I made a man out of you," he cried. Quick as a 
flash, came Roosevelt's retort: " Yes. John made a man out of me, 
but I made a Christian out of John." 




FERRIS AND MERRIFIELD OX THE RIIXS OF THE FIRST SHACK AT 

ELKHORN 

It was this shack which Maunders claimed 




CORRALS AT ELKHORN 
Photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 



ELKHORN BREAKS UP 425 

He himself might win through, and he might not. 
The thing was a gamble, in any event. He could 
afford to take the risk. Sewall and Dow could not. 

He had written " Bamie," earlier in the summer, 
that he was " curious to see how the fall sales would 
come out." Dow's report completely satisfied his 
curiosity. 

He called the two men into his room. He told 
them that he too had been " figuring up things." 
He would stand by his agreement, he said, if, fac- 
ing an uncertain outcome, they wished to remain. 
But, if they were willing, he thought they had 
" better quit the business and go back." 

Sewall and Dow did not hesitate. They said 
they would go back. 

" I never wanted to fool away anybody else's 
money," Sewall added. " Never had any of my own 
to fool away." 

" How soon can you go? " asked Roosevelt. 

Sewall turned and went into the kitchen " to ask 
the womenfolks." It happened that three or four 
weeks previous the population of Elkhorn had been 
increased by two. Baby sons had arrived in the 
same week in the families of both Sewall and Dow. 
The ministrations of Dr. Stickney had not been 
available, and the two mothers had survived because 
they had the constitutions of frontierswomen rather 
than because they had the benefit of the nursing 
of the termagant who was Jerry Tompkins's wife. 
The babies — known to their families, and to the 
endless succession of cowboys who came from near 



426 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

and far to inspect them, as " the Bad Lands babies " 
— were just six weeks old. 

" The womenfolks say they can go in three 
weeks, "^ Sewall reported. 

" Three weeks from to-day," answered Roosevelt, 
" we go." 

And so the folks from Maine, who had made a 
rough and simple house in the wilderness into a 
home, began to gather together their belongings 
and pack up. Wise old Bill Sewall had been right. 

" You'll come to feel different," he had said, two 
years before, when Roosevelt had been lonely and 
despondent. ** And then you won't want to stay 
here." 

Life, which for a while had seemed to Roosevelt 
so gray and dismal, had, in fact, slowly taken on 
new color. At times he had imagined that Dakota 
might satisfy him for a permanent residence, but 
that fancy, born of grief and disappointment, had 
vanished in the radiance of a new happiness. He 
had become engaged to Edith Carow, and he knew 
that the world for him and for her was that busy 
world where his friends were, and hers, and where 
he and she had been boy and girl together. 

The lure of politics, moreover, was calling him. 
And yet, during those last weeks at Elkhorn, he 
was not at all sure that he wished to reenter the 
turmoil. He rode out into the prairie one day for a 
last " session " with Bill Sewall shortly before the 
three weeks were up. He told Sewall he had an idea 
he ought to go into law. 



FACING EAST 427 

" You'd be a good lawyer," said Bill, "but I 
think you ought to go into politics. Good men like 
you ought to go into politics. If you do, and if you 
live, I think you'll be President." 

Roosevelt laughed. " That's looking a long way 
ahead." 

"It may look a long way ahead to you," Sewall 
declared stoutly, " but it isn't as far ahead as it's 
been for some of the men who got there." 

"I'm going home now," said Roosevelt, " to see 
about a job my friends want me to take. I don't 
think I want it. It will get me into a row. And I 
want to write." 

An Easterner, whose name has slipped from the 
record, hearing possibly that Roosevelt was making 
changes in the management of his herds, offered to 
buy all of Roosevelt's cattle. Roosevelt refused. 
The man offered to buy Merrifield's share, then 
Sylvane's. ^oth rejected the offer. The herd had 
increased greatly in value since they had established 
it. The coming spring, they said, they would begin 
to get great returns. . . . 

" September 25, 1886," runs an item in Bill 
Sewall's account-book, " squared accounts with 
Theodore Roosevelt." On the same day Roosevelt 
made a contract with Merrifield and Sylvane 
Ferris by which he agreed, as the contract runs, " to 
place all his cattle branded with the Maltese cross 
and all his she-stock and bulls branded with the 
elkhorn and triangle, some twenty-odd hundred 
head in all, valued at sixty thousand dollars," in 



428 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

charge of Ferris and Merrifield on shares for the 
term of four years; the men of the Maltese Cross 
agreeing on their part to take charge of the Elkhorn 
steer brand which was Roosevelt's exclusive prop- 
erty. 

Then, knowing that his cattle were in good hands, 
Roosevelt once more turned his face to the East, 
conscious in his heart, no doubt, that, however soon 
he might return, or however often, the Dakota 
idyl was ended. 



XXV 

I may not see a hundred 

Before I see the Styx, 
But coal or ember, I'll remember 

Eighteen-eighty-six. 

The stiff heaps in the coulee, 

The dead eyes in the camp, 
And the wind about, blowing fortunes out 

As a woman blows out a lamp. 

From Medora Nights 

Roosevelt accepted the Republican nomination 
for Mayor of New York City, " with the most 
genuine reluctance," as he wrote Lodge. He rec- 
ognized that it was " a perfectly hopeless contest; 
the chance for success being so very small that it 
may be left out of account." It was a three-cornered 
fight, with Henry George as the nominee of a United 
Labor Party on a single- tax platform, and Abram S. 
Hewitt as the candidate of Tammany Hall. 

The nomination gave Dakota an occasion to 
express its mind concerning its adopted son, and it 
did so, with gusto. 

Theodore is a Dakota cowboy [said the Press of Sioux 
Falls], and has spent a large share of his time in the 
Territory for a couple of years. He is one of the finest 
thoroughbreds you ever met — a whole-souled, clear- 
headed, high-minded gentleman. When he first went on 
the range, the cowboys took him for a dude, but soon 
they realized the stuff of which the youngster was built, 
and there is no man now who inspires such enthusiastic 
regard among them as he. 



430 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Roosevelt conducted a lively campaign, for it 
was not in him to make anything but the best fight 
of which he was capable even with the odds against 
him. The thoughtful element of the city, on whose 
support against the radicalism of Henry George 
on the one hand and the corruption of Tammany 
on the other, he should have been able to count, 
became panic-stricken at the possibility of a labor 
victory, and gave their votes to Hewitt. He was 
emphatically defeated; in fact,, he ran third. " But 
anyway," he remarked cheerfully, " I had a bully 
time." 

He went abroad immediately after election, and 
in December, at St. George's, Hanover Square, 
London, he married Edith Kermit Carow. 

Once more, winter descended upon the Bad Lands. 

Medora [remarked the Bismarck Tribune in Novem- 
ber] has pretty nearly gone into winter quarters. To be 
sure, the slaughter-house establishment of Marquis de 
Mores will not formally shut down until the end of the 
month, but there are many days on which there is no 
killing done and the workmen have to lay off. The 
past season has not been of the busiest, and the near 
approach of winter finds this about the quietest place 
in western Dakota. The hotel is closed. There is only 
one general store and its proprietor declared that the 
middle of December will find him, stock and all, hundreds 
of miles from her'e. The proprietor of the drug store will 
move early in December, as he cannot make his board 
in the place. 

A. T. Packard, the editor of the Bad Lands Cowboy, 
which now has a circulation of 650, is evidently prosper- 



THE BAD WINTER 43i 

ing well, and, with the managers of the Northern Pacific 
Refrigerator Company and the railroad agents, seems 
to be about the only person who expresses an intention 
of spending the season here. 

Fortunate were those who spent that season else- 
where. Old-timers, whose wits had been sharpened 
by long life in the open, had all the autumn been 
making ominous predictions. They talked of a hard 
winter ahead, and the canniest of them defied the 
skeptics by riding into Medora trailing a pack-horse 
and purchasing six months' supplies of provisions 
at one time. 

Nature, they pointed out, was busier than she 
had ever been, in the memory of the oldest hunter 
in that region, in " fixin' up her folks for hard times." 
The muskrats along the creeks were building their 
houses to twice their customary height; the walls 
were thicker than usual, and the muskrats' fur was 
longer and heavier than any old-timer had ever 
known it to be. The beavers were working by day 
as well as by night, cutting the willow brush, and 
observant eyes noted that they were storing tu^Ice 
their usual winter's supply. The birds were acting 
strangely. The ducks and geese, which ordinarily 
flew south In October, that autumn had, a month 
earlier, already departed. The snowbirds and the 
cedar birds were bunched in the thickets, fluttering 
about by the thousands in the cedar brakes, obvi- 
ously restless and uneasy. The Arctic owls, who 
came only In hard winters, were about. 

There was other evidence that the winds were 



432 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

brewing misery. Not only the deer and the antelope, 
the wolves and the coyotes, but the older range 
cattle and the horses were growing unusually long 
coats. 

Other signs of strange disturbances of Nature 
were not lacking. During October the usual Indian- 
summer haze seemed to have lifted to a higher 
altitude, interposing, as it were, a curtain between 
earth and sun. The light became subdued and un- 
natural. Halos appeared about the sun, with sun- 
dogs at opposite sides of the circle. The super- 
stitious were startled, in the time of the full moon, 
at four shafts of light, which could be seen emanat- 
ing from it, giving an eerie effect as of a cross over 
the silver disc. 

There was usuall}^ a wet snowstorm In late 
October; this year it did not come. A weird, dull 
stillness was in the air. Then, one evening toward 
the end of the first week in November, the snow 
came, falling lightly and noiselessly. As the evening 
advanced, the wind arose; and even as it increased 
in violence, the spirit in the thermometer fell. The 
wind became a gale, and before midnight a blizzard 
was howling and sweeping through the Bad Lands 
such as no one there had ever known before. The 
snow was like the finest powder, driving through 
ever>' crack and nail hole, and piling snowdrifts 
within the houses as well as without. 

"L'pon getting up in the morning," said Lincoln 
Lang long afterward, describing that storm, " the 
house was intensely cold, with everything that 



THE FIRST BLIZZARD 433 

could freeze frozen solid. The light was cut off from 
the windows looking south. As we opened the front 
door, we were confronted by a solid wall of snow 
reaching to the eaves of the house. There was no 
drift over the back door, looking north, but, as I 
opened it, I was blown almost from my feet by the 
swirl of the snow, which literally filled the air, so 
that it was impossible to see any of the surrounding 
ranch-buildings or even the fence, less than fifty feet 
distant. It was like a tornado of pure white dust 
or very fine sand, icy cold, and stinging like a 
whip-lash." 

As fast as the fine dry snow fell, it drifted and 
packed itself into the coulees, gulches, and depres- 
sions, filling them to a depth of a hundred feet or 
more. The divides and plateaus, and other exposed 
places, were left almost bare, except where some 
mound or rock or bit of sagebrush created an ob- 
struction, about which the eddying currents piled 
snowdrifts which rose week after week to huge 
proportions. On the river bottoms where the sage- 
brush was thick, the snow lay level with the top of 
the brush, then drove on to lodge and pack about 
the Cottonwood trees and beneath the river-banks, 
forming great drifts, extending here and there 
from bank to bank. 

The blizzard abated, but the icy cold did not; 
another blizzard came, and another and another. 
Save as it was whirled by the wind, ultimately to 
become a part of some great drift, the snow remained 
where it fell. No momentary thaw came to carry 



434 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

away a portion of the country's icy burden, or to 
alleviate for a few hours the strain on the snow- 
bound men and women in the lonely ranch-houses. 
On the bottoms the snow was four feet deep. 

November gave way to December, and December 
to January. The terrible cold persisted, and over 
the length and breadth of the Bad Lands the drifts 
grew monstrous, obliterating old landmarks and 
creating new, to the bewilderment of the occasional 
wayfarer. 

Blizzard followed blizzard. For the men and 
women on the scattered rancheS; it was a period of 
intense strain and privation; but for the cattle, 
wandering over the wind-swept world of snow and 
ice, those terrible months brought an affliction 
without parallel. 

No element was lacking to make the horror of the 
ranges complete. The country, as Roosevelt had 
pointed out in July, was over-stocked. Even under 
favorable conditions there was not enough grass 
to feed the cattle grazing in the Bad Lands. And 
conditions throughout the summer of 1886 had been 
menacingly unfavorable. The drought had been 
intense. A plague of grasshoppers had swept over 
the hills. Ranchmen, who were accustomed to store 
large quantities of hay for use in winter, harvested 
little or none, and were forced to turn all their 
cattle out on the range to shift for themselves. The 
range itself was barren. The stem-cured grass 
which generally furnished adequate nutriment had 
been largely consumed by the grasshoppers. What 



DESTRUCTION OF THE CATTLE 435 

there was of it was buried deep under successive 
layers of snow. The new stock, the " yearlings," 
driven into the Bad Lands from Texas or Iowa 
or Minnesota, succumbed first of all. In the coulees 
or the creek-beds, where they sought refuge in 
droves from the stinging blasts of the driven snow, 
they stood helpless and were literally snowed under, 
or imprisoned by the accumulation of ice about 
their feet, and frozen to death where they stood. 
The native stock, in their shaggier coats, faced the 
iron desolation with more endurance, keeping astir 
and feeding on sagebrush and the twigs of young 
cottonwoods. Gaunt and bony, they hung about 
the ranches or drifted into Medora, eating the tar- 
paper from the sides of the shacks, until at last 
they dropped and died. There was no help that 
the most sympathetic humanitarian or the most 
agonized cattle-owner could give them; for there 
was no fodder. There was nothing that any one 
could do, except, with aching and apprehensive 
heart, to watch them die. 

They died by thousands and tens of thousands, 
piled one on the other in coulees and wash-outs and 
hidden from sight by the snow which seemed never 
to cease from falling. Only the wolves and coyotes 
throve that winter, for the steers, imprisoned in 
the heavy snow, furnished an easy " kill." Sage 
chickens were smothered under the drifts, rabbits 
were smothered in their holes. 

It was a winter of continuous and unspeakable 
tragedy. Men rode out into the storms and never 



436 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

reached their destinations, wandering desperately 
in circles and sinking down at last, to be covered 
like the cattle with the merciless snow. Children 
lost their way between ranch-house and stable and 
were frozen to death within a hundred yards of 
their homes. The " partner " of Jack Snyder, a 
pleasant "Dutchman," whom Roosevelt knew well, 
died and could not be buried, for no pick could 
break through that iron soil; and Snyder laid him 
outside the cabin they had shared, to remain there till 
spring came, covered also by the unremitting snow. 
Here and there a woman went off her head. One 
such instance was productive of a piece of uncon- 
scious humor that, in its grimness, was in key with 
the rest of that terrible winter: 

Dear Pierre [wrote a friend to Wibaux, who had gone 
to France for the winter, leaving his wife in charge of 
the ranch], — No news, except that Dave Brown killed 
Dick Smith and your wife's hired girl blew her brains 
out in the kitchen. Everything O.K. here. 
Yours truly 

Henry Jackson 

Early in March, after a final burst of icy fury, 
a quietness came into the air, and the sun, burning 
away the haze that lay over it, shone down once 
more out of a blue sky. Slowly the temperature 
rose, and then one day, never to be forgotten, there 
came a warm moistness into the atmosphere. 
Before night fell, the " Chinook" was pouring down 
from beyond the mountains, releasing the icy 
tension and softening all things. 



THE SPRING FLOOD 437 

Last Sunday [the Dickinson Press recorded, on March 
5th] the welcome Chinook wind paid us a visit, and 
before noon the Httle rills were trickling down the hills 
and the brown herbage began to appear through the 
snow in every direction; the soft, balmy wind fanning 
the cheek brought memories and hopes of spring to the 
winter-wearied denizens of our community. 

" Within a day or so," said Lincoln Lang after- 
ward, " the snow had softened everywhere. Gullies 
and wash-outs started to run with constantly in- 
creasing force, until at length there was a steady 
roar of running water, with creeks out of bounds 
everywhere. Then, one day, we suddenly heard a 
roar above that of the rushing water, coming from 
the direction of the Little Missouri, and hurrying 
there saw a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten. 
The river was out of banks clear up into the cotton- 
woods and out on to the bottom, going down in a 
raging, muddy torrent, literally full of huge, grinding 
ice-cakes, up-ending and rolling over each other as 
they went, tearing down trees in their paths, ripping, 
smashing, tearing at each other and everything in 
their course in the effort to get out and away. The 
spectacle held us spellbound. None of us had ever 
seen anything to compare with it, for the spring 
freshets of other years had been mild affairs as 
compared to this. But there was something else 
that had never been seen before, and doubtless 
never will be seen again, for as we gazed we could 
see countless carcasses of cattle going down with 
the ice, rolling over and over as they went, so that 
at times all four of the stiffened legs of a carcass 



438 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

would point skyward as it turned under the im- 
pulsion of the swiftly moving current and the grind- 
ing ice-cakes. Now and then a carcass would be- 
come pinched between two ice-floes, and either go 
down entirely or else be forced out on the top of 
the ice, to be rafted along for a space until the cake 
upon which it rested suddenly up-ended or turned 
completely over in the maelstrom of swirling water 
and ice. Continuously carcasses seemed to be going 
down while others kept bobbing up at one point or 
another to replace them." 

And this terrible drama continued, not for an hour 
or for a few hours, but for days. Only as the weeks 
went by and the snow retreated^as it possible for 
the cattlemen to make any estimate of their losses. 
The coulees were packed with dead cattle; the 
sheltered places in the cottonwood trees in the 
bottoms along the river Were packed with them. 
Here and there a carcass was discovered high up in 
a crotch of a tree where the animal had struggled 
over the drifts to munch the tender twigs. 

" I got a saddle horse and rode over the country," 
said Merrifield afterward, " and I'm telling you, the 
first day I rode out I never saw a live animal." 

The desolation of the Bad Lands was inde- 
scribable. Where hundreds of thousands of cattle 
had grazed the previous autumn, shambled and 
stumbled a few emaciated, miserable survivors. 
Gregor Lang, who had gone into the winter with 
three thousand head all told, came out of it with 
less than four hundred. The ''Hash-Knife outfit," 



THE BONEYARD .439 

c 
which had owned a hundred thousand head, lost 
seventy-five thousand. Not a ranchman up and 
down the Little Missouri lost less than half his herd. 
The halcyon days of Billings County were over. 
What had been a flourishing cattle country was a 
boneyard where the agents of fertilizer factories 
bargained for skeletons. 



XXVI 

Some towns go out in a night, 

And some are swept bare in a day, 

But our town like a phantom island. 
Just faded away. 

Some towns die, and are dead, 

But ours, though it perished, breathes; 

And, in old men and in young dreamers 
Still, glows and seethes. 

From Medora Nights 

Roosevelt returned from Europe on March 28th. 

The loss among the cattle has been terrible [he wrote 
Sewall from New York early in April]. About the only 
comfort I have out of it is that, at any rate, you and 
Wilmot are all right ; I would not mind the loss of a few 
hundred if it was the only way to benefit you and Will — 
but it will be much more than that. 

I am going out West in a few days to look at things 
for myself. 

Well, I must now try to worry through as best I may. 
Sometime I hope to get a chance to go up and see you 
all. Then I shall forget my troubles when we go off into 
the woods after caribou or moose. 

There was no merriment this time when Roosevelt 
arrived in Medora. With Sylvane he rode over the 
ranges. 

You cannot imagine anything more dreary than the 
look of the Bad Lands [he wrote Sewall]. Everything 
was cropped as bare as a bone. The sagebrush was 
just fed out by the starving cattle. The snow lay so 
deep that nobody could get around; it was almost im- 
possible to get a horse a mile. 

In almost every coulee there were dead cattle. 



ROOSEVELT'S LOSSES 441 

There were nearly three hundred on Wadsworth bottom. 
Annie came through all right; Angus died. Only one 
or two of our horses died; but the O K lost sixty head. 
In one of Munro's draws I counted in a single patch of 
brushwood twenty-three dead cows and calves. 

You boys were lucky to get out when you did ; if you 
had waited until spring, I guess it would have been a 
case of walking. 

" I don't know how many thousand we owned at 
Elkhorn and the Maltese Cross in the autumn of 
1886," said iVIerrifield afterward. ''But after that 
terrible winter there wasn't a cow left, only a few 
hundred sick-looking steers." 

I am bluer than indigo about the cattle [Roosevelt 
wrote his sister Corinne]. It is even worse than I feared; 
I wish I was sure I would lose no more than half the 
money I invested out here. I am planning how to get out 
of it. 

With Sylvane and Merrifield, with whom in other 
days Roosevelt had talked of golden prospects, he 
gloomily reviewed the tragic situation. The impulse 
was strong in them all to start afresh and retrieve 
their losses. Most of the cattlemen were completely 
discouraged and were selling at ridiculously low 
prices the stock which had survived the winter. But 
Roosevelt resisted the temptation. 

" I can't afford to take a chance by putting in any 
more capital," said Roosevelt. " I haven't the right 
to do it." 

And there the discussion ended. 

There w^as a matter beside the wreck of his cattle 
business which required Roosevelt's immediate. 



442 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

attention. George Myers was under suspicion 
(honest George Myers, of all men!) of being a cattle- 
thief. Roosevelt would have jumped to George's 
defense in any case, but the fact that the man who 
brought the charges against him was Joe Morrill, 
whom the forces of disorder had elected sheriff the 
previous April, added an extra zest to the fight. 

George had, for some years, "run" a few cattle 
of his own with the Maltese Cross herd. Of these, 
two steers had, through an oversight, remained un- 
branded and been sent to Chicago with what was 
known as a "hair-brand " picked on the hide. Morrill 
was stock inspector as well as sheriff and allowed the 
animals to pass, but when Myers, shortly after, went 
East to visit his family, Morrill swore out a warrant 
for his arrest and started in pursuit. 

He found Myers at Wooster, Ohio, arrested him, 
obtained his extradition and then, to the amazement 
of the local judge, released him. 

"You can go now, George," he said. " When will 
you be ready to start back? " 

"Oh, in a day or two, I guess," said George. 

" That's a hell of a way to use a prisoner," 
exclaimed the judge. 

" Thanks, judge," Morrill replied coolly, " but 
he's my prisoner." 

They returned West shortly after, living high on 
the way. The sheriff had his wife with him, and it 
dawned on George that Joe Morrill was having an 
extraordinarily pleasant vacation at the expense of 
the taxpayers and of George's own reputation, and, in 




GEORGE MYERS 




THE LITTLE MISSOURI AT ELKHORN 



MORRILL vs. MYERS 443 

addition, was making a tidy sum of money out of the 
trip. His transportation, reservations, and allowance 
per diem were paid, of course, by the county he rep- 
resented. George, having brought a load of cattle to 
the stock-yards, had a pass for his return. But that 
was the sheriff's luck, it appeared, not the county's. 
Morrill treated him most affably. As they were near- 
ing Medora, in fact, he informed his prisoner that 
he would appear before the justice of the peace, 
explain that he had discovered that the charge was 
baseless, and ask for a dismissal of the case without 
a hearing on the ground that a mistake had been 
made. 

But the sheriff was not taking into account the 
fact that Medora had, during the past two or three 
years, emerged from barbarism, and that there was 
such a thing as public opinion to be confronted and 
satisfied. To the majority of the citizens, an accusa- 
tion of cattle-thieving was almost identical with a 
conviction, and feeling ran high for a time against 
George Myers. But Packard jumped into the fight 
and in the columns of the Bad Lands Cowboy 
excoriated Joe Morrill. 

The affair spilled over beyond the limits of 
Billings County, for the Bismarck Tribune printed 
Morrill's version of the case, and a day or so later 
published a stinging letter from Packard, who was 
nothing if not belligerent. It did not hurt his cause 
that he was able to quote a statement, made by 
Morrill, that " there's plenty in it if the justice of 
the peace and the sheriff work together." 



444 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Myers, backed by Packard, refused to have the 
case dismissed and it was put on the calendar at 
Mandan. There it rested until the following spring. 

Roosevelt, arriving in Medora in April, saw at once 
that a larger issue was at stake than even the ques- 
tion of doing justice to a man wrongfully accused. 
To have a man like Morrill officially responsible for 
the detection of cattle-thieves was a travesty. 

He promptly sought Joe Morrill, finding him at 
the " depot." In his capacity as chairman of the 
Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, he 
was in a position to speak as Morrill's employer, 
and he spoke with his customary directness. Gregor 
Lang, who happened to be present, told Lincoln 
afterward that he had " never heard a man get 
such a scathing" as Roosevelt gave the shifty stock 
inspector. 

"Roosevelt was taking a lot of chances," said 
Lincoln Lang later, " because Morrill was cornered. 
He was known to be a gunman and a risky man to 
mix with." 

Roosevelt ordered Morrill to resign his inspector- 
ship at once. Morrill refused. 

The annual meeting of the Montana Stock- 
grower's Association was to be held in Miles City 
the middle of the month. Roosevelt knew that the 
Association would not consent to sit in judgment 
on the case as between Myers and Morrill. He 
determined, therefore, to demand that the inspector- 
ship at Medora be abolished on the ground that the 
inspector was worse than useless. 



ROOSEVELT TAKES A HAND 445 

Roosevelt presented his charges before the Board 
of Stock Commissioners on April i8th. The Board 
was evidently reluctant to act, and, at the suggestion 
of certain members of it, Roosevelt, on the follow- 
ing day, presented the matter before the Executive 
Committee of the Association. He asked that the 
Committee request the Board of Stock Commis- 
sioners to do away with the inspectorship at Medora, 
but the Committee, too, was wary of giving offense. 
He asked twice that the Committee hear the charges. 
The Committee refused, referring him back to the 
Board of Stock Commissioners. 

That Board, meanwhile, was hearing from 
other cattlemen in the Bad Lands. Boyce, of the 
great " Three-Seven outfit," supported Roosevelt's 
charges, and Towers, of the Towers and Gudgell 
Ranch near the Big Ox Bow, supported Boyce. 
Morrill was sent for and made a poor showing. It 
was evidently with hesitant spirits that the Board 
finally acted. Morrill was dismissed, but the Board 
hastened to explain that it was because its finances 
were too low to allow it to continue the inspector- 
ship at Medora and passed a vote of thanks for 
Morrill's " efficiency and faithful performance of 
duty." 

What Roosevelt said about the vote of thanks is 
lost to history. He was, no doubt, satisfied with 
the general result and was ready to let Morrill 
derive what comfort he could out of the words with 
which it was adorned. 

Through the records of that meeting of the 



446 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

cattlemen, Roosevelt looms with singular impres- 
siveness. At the meeting of the previous year he 
had been an initiate, an effective follower of men 
he regarded as better informed than himself; this 
year he was himself a leader. During the three 
years that had elapsed since he had last taken a 
vigorous part in the work of an important deliber- 
ative body, he had grown to an extraordinary extent. 
In the Legislature in Albany, and in the Republican 
Convention in Chicago in 1884, he had been nervous, 
vociferous, hot-headed, impulsive; in Miles City, 
in 1887, there was the same vigor, the same drive 
but with them a poise which the younger man had 
utterly lacked. On the first day of the meeting he 
made a speech asking for the elimination, from a 
report which had been submitted, of a passage 
condemning the Interstate Commerce Law. The 
house was against him almost to a man, for the 
cattlemen considered the law an abominable in- 
fringement of their rights. 

In the midst of the discussion, a stockman named 
Pat Kelly, who was incidentally the Democratic 
boss of Michigan, rose in his seat. " Can any 
gentleman inform me," he inquired, ''why the 
business of this meeting should be held up by the 
talk of a broken-down New York State politician? " 

There was a moment's silence. The stockmen 
expected a storm. There was none. Roosevelt took 
up the debate as though nothing had interrupted 
it. The man from Michigan visibly " flattened 
out." Me^an while, Roosevelt won his point. 



A COUNTRY OF RUINS 447 

He spent most of that summer at Elkhorn Ranch. 

Merrifield had, Hke Joe Ferris, gone East to New- 
Brunswick for a wife, and the bride, who, like Joe's 
wife, was a woman of education and charm, brought 
new Hfe to the deserted house on Elkhorn bottom. 
But something was gone out of the air of the Bad 
Lands; the glow that had burned in men's eyes had 
vanished. It had been a country of dreams and it 
was now a country of ruins; and the magic of the 
old days could not be re-created. 

The cattle industry of the Bad Lands, for the time 
being, was dead; and the pulses of the little town 
at the junction of the railroad and the Little Mis- 
souri began to flutter fitfully and ominously. Only 
the indomitable pluck of the Marquis and his 
deathless fecundity in conceiving new schemes of 
unexampled magnitude kept it alive at all. The 
Marquis's ability to create artificial respiration and 
to make the dead take on the appearance of life 
never showed to better effect than in that desolate 
year of 1887. His plan to slaughter cattle on the 
range for consumption along the line of the Northern 
Pacific was to all intents and purposes shattered by 
the autumn of 1885. But no one, it appears, recog- 
nized that fact, least of all the Marquis. He changed 
a detail here, a detail there; then, charged with a 
new enthusiasm, he talked success to every reporter 
who came to interview him, flinging huge figures 
about with an ease that a Rockefeller might envy; 
and the new^spapers from coast to coast called him 
one of the builders of the Northwest. 



448 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

His plan to sell dressed beef along the railroad 
gave way to a project to sell it at the wholesale stalls 
in Chicago. That failed. Thereupon, he evolved an 
elaborate and daring scheme to sell it direct to con- 
sumers in New York and other Eastern seaboard 
cities. 

** The Marquis actually opened his stores in Ful- 
ton Market," said Packard afterward, " and there 
sold range beef killed in Medora. Of course his proj- 
ect failed. It was shot full of fatal objections. But 
with his magnetic personality, with his verbalistic 
short-jumps over every objection, with every news- 
paper and magazine of the land an enthusiastic 
volunteer in de Mores propaganda, and with the 
halo of the von Hoffman millions surrounding him 
and all his deeds, bankers and business men fell into 
line at the tail of the de Mores chariot. We of the 
Bad Lands were the first to see the fatal weaknesses 
in his plans, but we were believers, partly because 
the Marquis seemed to overcome every difficulty by 
the use of money, and mainly because we wanted 
to believe." 

Dozens of shops were in fact opened by the Mar- 
quis, but the public refused to trade, even at a 
saving, in stores where only one kind of meat could 
be bought. The Marquis had all the figures in the 
world to prove that the public should buy; but 
human nature thwarted him. 

The plan failed, but the Marquis, with his cus- 
tomary dexterity, obscured the failure with a new 
and even more engaging dream. 



NEW SCHEMES OF THE MARQUIS 449 

"'Our company is to be merged into another very 
large cattle syndicate," he said in March, 1887, 
** and having abundant capital, we propose to buy 
up every retail dealer in this city either by cash or 
stock." 

The National Consumers' Company was the name 
of the new organization. 

There was a fine mixture of altruism and business 
in the first prospectus which the Marquis's new 
company issued: 

Crushed, as so many others, by monopoly, we have 
been looking for the means of resisting it by uniting in 
a practical way with those who, like ourselves, try to 
make their future by their work. This has led to the 
organization of this company. The name of the company 
shows its aims. It must be worked by and for the 
people. 

That sounded very impressive, and the news- 
papers began to speak of the Marquis as a true 
friend of the people. Meanwhile, the Bad Lands 
Cowboy announced: 

Marquis de Mores has completed contracts with the 
French Government to supply its soldiers with a newly 
invented soup. He intends to visit Europe soon to 
make contracts with Western range cattle companies 
who have their headquarters there, for the slaughtering 
of their cattle. 

The soup scheme evidently died stillborn, for 
history records nothing further of it, and less than 
three months after the National Consumers' Com- 
pany was founded with blare of trumpets, it had 



450 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

collapsed. It was characteristic of von Hoffman, 
whose fortune was behind the undertaking, that he 
paid back every subscriber to the stock in full. If 
any one was to lose, he intimated, it was von Hoff- 
man. But, having settled with the creditors of his 
expensive son-in-law, he explained to that gentle- 
man, in words which could not be misunderstood, 
that he would have no more of his schemes. Von 
Hoffman thereupon betook himself to Europe, and 
the Marquis to Medora. 

His optimism remained indomitable to the last. 
To reporters he denied vigorously that he had any 
intentions " of removing his business interests from 
Dakota." 

" I like Dakota and have come to stay," he re- 
marked. Thereupon he launched one more gran- 
diose scheme, announcing that he had discovered a 
gold mine in Montana and was planning to begin 
working it for all it was worth as soon as his pro- 
spectors had completed their labors; and sailed for 
India with his intrepid Marquise to hunt tigers. 

Dakota knew him no more, and under the head- 
ing, " An Ex-Dakota Dreamer," the Sioux Falls 
Press pronounced his epitaph: 

The Marquis is a most accomplished dreamer, and 
so long as his fortune lasted, or his father-in-law. Baron 
von Hoffman, would put up the money, he could afford 
to dream. He once remarked confidentially to a friend, 
" I veel make ze millions and millions by ze great enter- 
prizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, 
and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an 
veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in com- 



THE FADING OF MEDORA 451 

mand, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, 
and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone." One 
time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern 
Pacific, wrote him at Nfew York about the loss of three 
thousand head of sheep, the letter going into all the 
details of the affair. The Marquis turned the sheet over 
and wrote, " Please don't trouble me with trifles like 
these." He is a very pleasant gentleman to meet, but 
unfortunately his schemes are bigger than he is. 

Medora was a town whose glory had departed. A 
pall was on all things, and the Cowboy was no longer 
present to dispel it with the cheerful optimism of old. 
For, one night, when the cold was most bitter, and 
the wind was high, a fire had started in the old 
cantonment building where Packard lived with his 
newly wedded wife, and printed the pages that had 
for three years brought gayety to the inhabitants of 
Medora, and stability to its infant institutions. The 
files were burned up, the presses destroyed; the 
Cowboy was a memory. It was as though the soul 
of Medora had gone out of its racked body. The 
remains lay rigid and voiceless. 

One by one its leading citizens deserted it. Roose- 
velt came and went, making his long stays no longer 
in the West, but in the East, where " home " was 
now. Packard went, then Fisher, then Van Driesche. 

Q. C. Maunders,] of Medora [runs an item in the 
Dickinson Press], is talking of moving two or three of 
his buildings from there to Dickinson. 

It was followed by other items full of mournful 
import. 



452 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

[J. C. Maunders,] [Joseph Morrill,] and John W.Goodall, 
of Medora, were here Thursday and closed contracts 
for several lots. They will build. 

Two weeks later, the exodus began. The telling 
of it has a Shaksperean flavor: 

Medora is coming to Dickinson. On Thursday a train 
came in from the west with a number of flat-cars on 
which were loaded the buildings of [J. C. Maunders,] who 
recently bought lots here. 

Thus it was that the Pyramid Park Hotel, where 
Roosevelt had spent his first night in Little Missouri, 
four years previous, came to Dickinson to become a 
most respectable one-family dwelling. Mrs. Mc- 
Geeney's hotel followed it two weeks later. 

In August came the final blow: 

D. O. Sweet and family have moved from Medora to 
Dickinson. Mr. Sweet desired to reside where there 
was some life and prospect of growth. 

Alas, for earthly greatness, when a son of the 
town that was to rival Omaha should desert her 
with such a valedictory! 



XXV II 

The range is empty and the trails are blind, 

And I don't seem but half myself to-day. 
I wait to hear him ridin' up behind 

And feel his knee rub mine the good old way. 
He's dead — and what that means no man kin tell. 

Some call it "gone before." 
Where? I don't know, but, God! I know so well 

That he ain't here no more! 

Badger Clark 

This, then, is the story of Roosevelt In the Bad 
Lands. What remains is epilogue. 

In the autumn of 1887, Roosevelt was again with 
the Merrifields at Elkhorn and with Sylvane at the 
Maltese Cross, to assist in the round-up of a train- 
load of cattle which he subsequently sold at Chicago 
(again at a loss, for the prices for beef were even 
lower than the previous year). He went on a brief 
hunt after antelope in the broken country between 
the Little Missouri and the Beaver; he fought a 
raging prairie fire with the split and bleeding car- 
cass of a steer; he went on another hunt late in 
December with a new friend named Fred Herrig, 
and was nearly frozen to death in a blizzard, at- 
tempting (not without success) to shoot mountain 
sheep; whereupon, feeling very fit, he returned East 
to his family and his books. 

He was now increasingly busy with his writing, 
completing that winter a volume of vigorous 
sketches of the frontier, called "Ranch Life and 
the Hunting Trail," beside his " Life of Gouverneur 



454 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Morris," and a book of " Essays on Practical 
Politics." In the autumn of 1888, he was again at 
Elkhorn and again on the chase, this time in the 
Selkirks in northern Idaho, camping on Kootenai 
Lake, and from there on foot with a pack on his 
back, ranging among the high peaks with his old 
guide John Willis and an Indian named Ammal, who 
was pigeon-toed and mortally afraid of hobgoblins. 

In 1889 he became a member of the Civil Service 
Commission in Washington, and thereafter he saw 
the Bad Lands only once a year, fleeing from his 
desk to the open country every autumn for a touch 
of the old wild life and a glimpse of the old friends 
who yet lingered in that forsaken country. 

Medora had all the desolation of " a busted cow- 
town " whose inhabitants, as one cowpuncher re- 
marked in answer to a tenderfoot's inquiry, were 
" eleven, including the chickens, when they were all 
in town." All of the wicked men and most of the 
virtuous ones, who had lent picturesqueness to 
Medora in the old days, were gone. Sylvane Ferris 
still lingered as foreman of the cattle which Roose- 
velt still retained in the Bad Lands, and Joe Ferris 
still ran his store, officiated as postmaster, and kept 
a room for Roosevelt on his infrequent visits. Bill 
Williams shot a man and went to jail, and with him 
went the glory of his famous saloon. Of his old 
cronies, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones only remained. 
He was a man of authority now, for he had been 
elected sheriff when Joe Morrill moved his lares et 
penates to Dickinson. His relations with Roose- 



BILL JONES 455 

velt criss-crossed, for, as sheriff, Roosevelt was his 
deputy, but whenever Roosevelt went on an ex- 
tended hunting trip, Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was 
his teamster. He was, incidentally, an extraordi- 
narily efficient teamster. He had certain profane 
rituals which he repeated on suitable occasions, word 
for word, but with an emphasis and sincerity that 
made them sound each time as though he had in- 
vented them under the inspiration of the immediate 
necessity. He had a special torrent of obscenity for 
his team when they were making a difficult crossing 
somewhere on the Little Missouri. It was always 
the same succession of terrifying expletives, and it 
always had the desired effect. It worked better than 
a whip. 

Meanwhile, the devotion of Bill Jones to Theodore 
Roosevelt was a matter of common report through- 
out the countryside, and it was said that he once 
stayed sober all summer in order to be fit to go on a 
hunting trip with Roosevelt in the fall. 

Sylvane married, like his " partners " going for 
his bride to New Brunswick, whose supply of delight- 
ful young ladies seemed to be inexhaustible. They 
went to live in a " martin's cage," as they called it, 
under the bluff at Medora, and there Roosevelt 
visited them, after Joe moved to Montana and his 
store passed into other hands. The Langs remained 
at Yule. After the evil winter. Sir James Pender 
threw them upon their own resources, and the years 
that followed were hard. Lang had long recognized 
the mistake he had made in not accepting Roose- 



456 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

velt's offer that September of 1883, and the matter 
remained a sore subject for Mrs. Lang, who never 
ceased regretting the lapse of judgment which had 
made her otherwise excellent husband miss what she 
knew, as soon as she met Roosevelt, had been the 
greatest opportunity which Gregor Lang would 
ever have placed in his hands. Lang, as county com- 
missioner, became an important factor in the devel- 
opment of the county, and his ranch flourished. 
Lincoln Lang turned to engineering and became an 
inventor. He went East to live, but his heart re- 
mained among the buttes where he had spent his 
adventurous boyhood. 

The Eatons forsook the punching of cattle, and 
engaged in " dude " ranching on a grand scale, and 
the " Eaton Ranch " began to be famous from coast 
to coast even before they moved to Wolf, Wyoming, 
in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Mrs. 
Cummins drifted away with her family, carrying, 
no doubt, her discontent with her. Lloyd Roberts 
disappeared, as though the earth had swallowed 
him, murdered, it was supposed, in Cheyenne, after 
he had loaned Bill Williams seven hundred dollars. 
Mrs. Roberts was not daunted. She kept the little 
ranch on Sloping Bottom and fed and clothed and 
educated her five daughters by her own unaided 
efforts. The Vines, father and son, drifted eastward. 
Packard and Dantz took to editing newspapers, 
Packard in Montana, Dantz in Pennsylvania. 
Edgar Haupt became a preacher, and Herman 
Haupt a physician. Fisher grew prosperous in the 




LINCOLN LANG 



WILLIAM T. DANTZ 




MARGARET ROBERTS 



'DUTCH WANNIGAN' 



OLD FRIENDS 457 

State of Washington ; Maunders throve mightily in 
Dickinson; Wilmot Dow died young; Bill Sewall 
resumed his life in Maine as a backwoodsman and 
guide; Foley remained custodian of the deserted 
de Mores property at Medora; "Redhead" Fin- 
negan was hanged. 

Poor "Dutch " Van Zander drank up his last 
remittance. " There," he cried, " I have blown in a 
hundred and twenty thousand dollars, but I've 
given the boys a whale of a good time! " He gave 
up drinking thereafter and went to work for the 
"Three Seven" outfit as an ordinary cowhand. He 
became a good worker, but when the call of gold in 
Alaska sounded, he responded and was seen no more 
in his old haunts. A few years later he appeared 
again for a day, saying that he was on his way to his 
old home in Holland. A month or two later news fil- 
tered into Medora that the brilliant and most lov- 
able Dutch patrician's son had been found, dead by 
his own hand, in a cemetery in Amsterdam, lying 
across his mother's grave. 

Twice Roosevelt's path crossed Joe Morrill's, 
and each time there was conflict. Morrill opened a 
butcher-shop in a town not far from Medora, and 
it devolved on Roosevelt, as chairman of the Stock- 
men's Association, to inform him that, unless he 
changed his manner of acquiring the beef he sold, he 
would promptly go to jail. The shifty swashbuckler 
closed his shop, and not long after, Roosevelt, who 
was at the time serving on the Civil Service Com- 
mission in Washington, heard that Morrill was en- 



458 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

deavoring to have himself made marshal of one of the 
Northwestern States. The " reference " Roosevelt 
gave him on that occasion was effective. Morrill 
was not appointed; and what happened to him 
thereafter is lost to history. 

In 1890, Roosevelt was at the ranch at Elkhorn 
with Mrs. Roosevelt; a year later he hunted elk with 
an English friend, R. H. M. Ferguson, at Two 
Ocean Pass in the Shoshones, in northwestern Wy- 
oming. That autumn the Merrilields moved to the 
Flathead country in northwestern Montana, and 
Roosevelt closed the ranch-house. A year later he 
returned to Elkhorn for a week's hunting. The 
wild forces of nature had already taken possession. 
The bunch-grass grew tall in the yard and on the 
sodded roofs of the stables and sheds; the weather- 
beaten log walls of the house itself were one in tint 
with the trunks of the gnarled cottonwoods by 
which it w^as shaded. " The ranch-house is in good 
repair," he wrote to Bill Sewall, " but it is melan- 
choly to see it deserted." 

Early the next spring Roosevelt took Archibald D. 
Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and his brother-in-law 
Douglas Robinson into partnership with him and 
formed the Elkhorn Stock Company, transferring 
his equity in the Elkhorn Ranch to the new 
corporation.^ 

It was at the end of a w^agon-trip to the Black 
Hills, which Roosevelt took with Sylvane and Hell- 

* See Appendix for a statement of Roosevelt's cattle invest- 
ment. 



SETH BULLOCK 459 

Roaring Bill Jones in 1893, that Roosevelt met Seth 
Bullock. 

Seth was at that time sheriff In the Black Hills district 
[wrote Roosevelt in his " Autobiography"], and a man 
he had wanted — a horse-thief — I finally got, I being 
at the time deputy sheriff two or three hundred miles 
to the north. The man went by a nickname which I 
will call " Crazy Steve." It was som.e time after 
" Steve's " capture that I went down to Ueadwood on 
business, Sylvane Ferris and I on horseback, while 
Bill Jones drove the wagon. At a little town, Spearfish, 
I think, after crossing the last eighty or ninety miles of 
gumbo prairie, we met Seth Bullock. We had had rather 
a rough trip, and had lain out for a fortnight, so I suppose 
we looked somewhat unkempt. Seth received us with 
rather distant courtesy at first, but unbent when he 
found out who we were, remarking, " You see, by your 
looks I thought you were some kind of a tin-horn gambling 
outfit, and that I might have to keep an eye on you! " 
He then inquired after the capture of " Steve " — with 
a little of the air of one sportsman when another has 
shot a quail that either might have claimed — "My 
bird, I believe? " 

In a letter to John Hay, Roosevelt described that 
meeting. 

When somebody asked Seth Bullock to meet us, he 
at first expressed disinclination. Then he was told that 
I was the Civil Service Commissioner, upon which he 
remarked genially, " Well, anything civil goes with 
me," and strolled over to be introduced. 

During these years, while Roosevelt was working 
on the Civil Service Commission, fighting the spoils- 
men and rousing the conscience of the American 



46o " ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD_LANDS 

people with a new ideal of public service, even while 
he stimulated their national pride with a fresh ex- 
pression of the American spirit, his old rival, the 
Marquis de Mores, was noticeably stirring the Old 
World. A year in India had been succeeded by a 
long stay in China, where the Marquis had conceived 
a scheme to secure concessions for France, which 
somehow went the way of all the Marquis's schemes; 
nothing came of it. 

He returned to France. The French people were 
in a restless, unhappy state. More than once, war 
with Germany seemed imminent. The Government 
was shot through with intrigue and corruption. The 
Marquis, with all the faults of his temperament, was 
an idealist, with a noble vision for his country. He 
saw that it had fallen into the hands of base, self- 
seeking men, and he grasped at every means that 
presented itself to overthrow the powers that seemed 
to him to be corrupting and enfeebling France. He 
became an enthusiastic follower of Boulanger; when 
Boulanger fell, he became a violent anti-Semite, 
and shortly after, a radical Socialist. Meanwhile, 
he fought one duel after another, on one occasion 
killing his man. More than once he came into con- 
flict with the law, and once was imprisoned for 
three months, accused of inciting the populace to 
violence against the army. There were rumors of 
plots with the royalists and plots with the anar- 
chists. It did not apparently seem of particular im- 
portance to the Marquis by whom the Government 
was overthrown, so it was overthrown. 



DEATH OF THE MARQUIS 461 

His plans did not prosper. Anti-Semitism grew 
beyond his control. The Dreyfus affair broke, and 
set the very foundations of France quivering. What 
the Marquis's part in it was, is obscure, but it was 
said that he was deeply involved. 

His attention was turning in another direction. 
France and England were struggling for the posses- 
sion of Central Africa, and the ]\Iarquis conceived 
the grandiose dream of uniting all the Mohamme- 
dans of the world against England. He went to 
Tunis in the spring of 1896, commissioned, it was 
said, by the French Government to lead an expedi- 
tion into the Soudan to incite the Arabs to resist the 
English advance in Africa. 

Whether the Alarquis actually had the support of 
the Government is more than dubious. When he set 
out on his expedition to the wild tribes of the Tuni- 
sian desert, he set out practically alone. At the last 
moment, the Marquis changed his Arab escort for 
a number of Touaregs, who offered him their serv- 
ices. They were a wild, untrustv/orthy race, and 
men who knew the country pleaded with him not 
to trust himself to them. But the Marquis, who 
had prided himself on his judgment in Little Mis- 
souri in 1883, had not changed his spots in 1896. 
His camel-drivers led him into an ambush near the 
well of El Ouatia. He carried himself like the game 
fighting man that he had ahva3S been, and there 
was a ring of dead men around him when he himself 
finally succumbed. 

Nineteen days later an Arab ofhcial, sent out by 



462 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

the French mihtary commander of the district, found 
his body riddled with wounds and buried in the 
sand near a clump of bushes close to where he had 
fallen. His funeral in Paris was a public event. 

It was a tragic but a fitting close to a dreamer's 
romantic career. But the end was not yet, and the 
romance connected with the Marquis de Mores was 
not yet complete. The investigation into his death 
which the French Government ordered was aban- 
doned without explanation. The Marquis's widow 
protested, accusing the Government of complicity 
in her husband's death, and charging that those who 
had murdered the Marquis were native agents of 
the French authorities and had been acting under 
orders. 

The Marquise herself went to Tunis, determined 
that the assassins of her husband should be brought 
to justice. There is a ring in her proclamation to 
the Arabs which might well have made the stripped 
bones of the Marquis stir in their leaden coffin. 

In behalf of the illustrious, distinguished, and noble 
lady, the Marquise of Mores, wife of the deceased 
object of God's pity, the Marquis of Mores, who was 
betrayed and murdered at El Ouatia, in the country 
of Ghadames, salutations, penitence, and the benediction 
of God! 

Let it herewith be known to all faithful ones that I 
place myself in the hands of God and of you, because 
I know you to be manly, energetic, and courageous. 
I appeal to you to help me avenge the death of my 
husband by punishing his assassins. I am a woman. 
Vengeance cannot be wreaked by my own hand. For 



ROOSEVELT'S PROGRESS 463 

this reason I inform you, and swear to you, by the one 
Almighty God, that to whosoever shall capture and 
deliver to the authorities at El-Qued, at Ouargia, or at 
El-Goleah one of my husband's assassins I will give 
1000 douros ($750) » 2000 douros for two assassins, 3000 
douros for three assassins. As to the principal assassins, 
Bechaoui and Sheik Ben Abdel Kader, I will give 2000 
douros for each of them. And now, understand, make 
yourselves ready, and may God give you success. 

Marquise de Mores 

The murderers were captured, convicted, and ex- 
ecuted. Then the little American woman, with her 
hair of Titian red, whom the cowboys of Little Mis- 
souri had christened " The Queen of the West," 
quietly withdrew from the public gaze; and the 
curtain fell on a great romantic drama. 

Theodore Roosevelt was just coming into national 
eminence as Police Commissioner of New York City 
when the Marquis de Mores died beside the well of 
El Ouatia. As a member of the Civil Service Com- 
mission in Washington he had caught the imagina- 
tion of the American people, and a growing number 
of patriotic men and women, scattered over the 
country, began to look upon him as the leader they 
had been longing for. He came to Medora no more 
for the round-up or the chase. 

In May, 1897, Roosevelt became Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Navy. Less than a year later the 
Spanish War broke out. The dream he had dreamed 
in 1886 of a regiment recruited from the wild horse- 
men of the plains became a reality. From the Can- 
adian border to the Rio Grande, the men he had 



464 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

lived and worked with on the round-up, and thou- 
sands of others whose imaginations had been seized 
by the stories of his courage and endurance, which 
had passed from mouth to mouth and from camp- 
fire to camp-fire through the cattle country, offered 
their services. The Rough Riders were organized, 
and what they accomplished is history. There were 
unquestionably more weighty reasons why he should 
become Governor of New York State than that he 
had been the successful leader of an aggregation 
of untamed gunmen in Cuba. But it was that fact 
in his career which caught the fancy of the voters, 
and by a narrow margin elected him a Republican 
Governor of his State in what, as everybody knew, 
was a " Democratic year." 

The men and women of the Bad Lands, scattered 
far and wide over the Northwest, watched his prog- 
ress with a glowing feeling in their hearts that was 
akin to the pride that a father feels at the greatness 
of a son whom he himself has guided in the way that 
he should go. There was none of them but felt that 
he had had a personal share in the making of this 
man who was beginning to loom larger and larger 
on the national horizon. They had been his mentors, 
and inasmuch as they had shown him how to tighten 
a saddle cinch or quiet a restless herd, they felt that 
they had had a part in the building of his character. 
They had a great pride, moreover, in the bit of 
country where they had spent their ardent youth, 
and they felt assured that the experiences which 
had thrilled and deepened them, had thrilled and 



RETURN AS GOVERNOR 465 

deepened him also. In their hearts they felt that 
they knew something of what had made him — " the 
smell, the singing prairies, the spirit that thrilled the 
senses there, the intoxicating exhilaration, the awful 
silences, the mysterious hazes, the entrancing sun- 
sets, the great storms and blizzards, the quiet, en- 
during people, the great, unnoted tragedies, the 
cheer, the humor, the hospitality, the lure of fortunes 
at the end of rainbows" — all those things they felt 
had joined to build America's great new leader; and 
they, who had experienced these things with him, 
felt that they were forever closer to him than his 
other countrymen could ever possibly be. 

Roosevelt was nominated for the vice-presidency 
in June, 1900, and in July he began a campaign tour 
over the country which eclipsed even Bryan's prodi- 
gious journeyings of 1896. Early in September he 
came to Dakota. 

Joe Ferris was the first to greet him after he 
crossed the border at a way-station at six o'clock in 
the morning.^ 

** Joe, old boy," cried Roosevelt exuberantly, 
" will you ever forget the first time we met? " 

Joe admitted that he would not. 

"You nearly murdered me. It seemed as if all 
the ill-luck in the world pursued us." 

Joe grinned. 

"Do you remember too, Joe," exclaimed Roose- 
velt, " how I swam the swollen stream and you stood 

^ The account of Roosevelt's triumphant return to Medora is 
taken verbatim from, conten.porary newspapers. 



466 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

on the bank and kept your eyes on me? The stream 
was very badly flooded when I came to it," said the 
Governor, turning to the group that had gathered 
about them. *' I forced my horse into it and we 
swam for the other bank. Joe was very much dis- 
tressed for fear we would not get across." 

" I wouldn't have taken that swim for all of 
Dakota," said Joe. 

At Dickinson, a gray-faced, lean man pushed his 
way through the crowd. It was Maunders, who had 
prospered, in spite of his evil ways. " Why," ex- 
claimed Roosevelt, " it does me good to see you. 
You remember when I needed a hammer so badly 
and you loaned it to me? You loaned me a rifle also. 
I never shall forget how badly I needed that hammer 
just then." 

Maunders, who had always been afl"able, grinned 
with delight and joined the Governor's party. 

The train moved on to Medora. Roosevelt and 
Joe Ferris sat by the window, and it seemed that 
every twisted crag and butte remind'^^d them of the 
days when they had ridden over that wild country 
together. 

As the train neared Medora, Roosevelt was pal- 
pably moved. "The romance of my life began here," 
he said. 

There were forty or fifty people at the station in 
Medora. They hung back bashfully, but he was 
among them in an instant. 

"Why, this is Mrs. Roberts!" he exclaimed. 
"You have not changed a bit, have you? " 



MEDORA CELEBRATES 467 

She drew his attention to George Myers, who was 
all smiles. 

" My, my, George Myers! " exclaimed Roosevelt, 
" I did not even hope to see you." Roosevelt turned 
to the crowd. "George used to cook for me," he 
said, with a wry expression. 

"Do you remember the time I made green bis- 
cuits for you? " asked George, with a grin. 

" I do," said Roosevelt emphatically, " I do, 
George. And I remember the time you fried the 
beans with rosin instead of lard. The best proof in 
the world, George, that I have a good constitution 
is that I ate your cooking and survived." 

" Well, now, Governor," exclaimed George, " I 
was thinking it would be a good idea to get that man 
Bryan up here and see what that kind of biscuit 
would do for him." 

Roosevelt looked about him, where the familiar 
buttes stretched gray and bleak in every direction. 
"It does not seem right," he exclaimed, " that I 
should come here and not stay." 

Some one brought a bronco for Roosevelt. A 
minute later he was galloping eastward toward the 
trail leading up to the bluff that rose a thousand 
feet behind Medora. " Over there is Square Butte," 
he cried eagerly, " and over there is Sentinel Butte. 
My ranch was at Chimney Butte. Just this side of 
it is the trail where Custer marched westward to the 
Yellowstone and the Rosebud to his death. There 
is the church especially erected for the use of the 
wife of the Marquis de Mores. His old house is 
beyond. You can see it." 



468 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

For a minute he sat silent. " Looking back to my 
old days here," he said, " I can paraphrase Kipling 
and say, 'Whatever may happen, I can thank God 
I have lived and toiled with men.'" 

Roosevelt was inaugurated as Vice-President in 
March, 1901. Six months later he was President of 
the United States. From a venturesome cowpuncher 
who made his way shyly into the White House, the 
glad tidings were spread to the Bad Lands and 
through the whole Northwest that Roosevelt was 
the same Roosevelt, and that everybody had 
better take a trip to Washington as soon as he 
could, for orders had gone forth that " the cowboy 
bunch can come in whenever they want to." 

Occasionally one or the other had difficulty In 
getting past the guards. It took Sylvane two days, 
once, to convince the doorkeeper that the President 
wanted to see him. Roosevelt was indignant. " The 
next time they don't let you in, Sylvane," he ex- 
claimed, " you just shoot through the windows." 

No one shot through the windows. It was never 
necessary. The cowboys dined at the President's 
table with Cabinet ministers and ambassadors. 

" Remember, Jim, that if you shot at the feet of 
the British Ambassador; to make him dance," 
Roosevelt whispered to one of his cowboy guests on 
one occasion, " it would be likely to cause inter- 
national complications." 

"Why, Colonel, I shouldn^t think of it," ex- 
claimed Jim. " I shouldn't think of it! " 

The cowpunchers were the only ones who refused 



THE COWBOY BUNCH 469 

to take altogether seriously the tradition that an 
invitation to the White House was equivalent to a 
command. John Willis on one occasion came down 
from Montana to discuss reclamation with the 
President, and Roosevelt asked him to take dinner at 
the White House that night. Willis murmured that 
he did not have a dress-suit, and it would not do to 
dine with the President of the United States " unless 
he were togged out proper." 

" Oh, that needn't bother you," exclaimed the 
President. 

"It makes a heap of difference," said Willis. " I 
may not always do the right thing, but I know 
what's proper." 

*' You would be just as welcome at my table if 
you came in buckskin trousers." 

" I know that's true," Willis replied, " but I guess 
I will have to side-step this trip. If you are taking 
any horseback rides out on the trail here to-morrow, 
I'm your man, but I guess I will get my grub down- 
town at the hashery where I'm bunking." 

That was all there was to it. John Willis could 
not be persuaded. 

Once more, for the last time, Roosevelt in 1903 
went back to Medora. As they came into the Bad 
Lands, he stood on the rear platform of his car, 
gazing wistfully over the forbidding-looking land- 
scape. 

" I know all this country like a book," he said 
to John Burroughs, who was beside him. " I have 
ridden over it and hunted in it and tramped over it 



470 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

in all seasons and weather, and it looks like home 
to me." 

As soon as I got west of the Missouri I came into my 
own former stamping-ground [he wrote to John Hay, 
describing that visit]. At every station there was some- 
body who remembered my riding in there when the 
Little Missouri round-up went down to the Indian 
reservation and then worked north across the Cannon 
Ball and up Knife and Green Rivers; or who had been 
an interested and possibly malevolent spectator when I 
had ridden east with other representatives of the cowmen 
to hold a solemn council with the leading grangers on 
the vexed subject of mavericks; or who had been hired 
as a train-hand when I had been taking a load of cattle 
to Chicago, and who remembered well how he and I at 
the stoppages had run frantically down the line of the 
cars and with our poles jabbed the unfortunate cattle 
who had lain down until they again stood up, and thereby 
gave themselves a chance for their lives; and who 
remembered how when the train started we had to 
clamber hurriedly aboard and make our way back to 
the caboose along the tops of the cattle cars. 

At Mandan two of my old cow-hands, Sylvane and 
Joe Ferris, joined me. At Dickinson all of the older 
people had known me and the whole town turned out 
with wild and not entirely sober enthusiasm. It was 
difficult to make them much of a speech, as there were 
dozens of men each earnestly desirous of recalling to 
my mind some special incident. One man,, how he 
helped me bring in my cattle to ship, and how a blue 
roan steer broke away leading a bunch which it took 
him and me three hours to round up and bring back; 
another, how seventeen years before I had come in a 
freight train from Medora to deliver the Fourth of July 
oration ; another, a gray-eyed individual named [Maun- 



RETURN AS PRESIDENT 471 

ders], who during my early years at Medora had shot 
and killed an equally objectionable individual, reminded 
me how, just twenty years before, when I was on my 
first buffalo hunt, he loaned me the hammer off his 
Sharp's rifle to replace the broken hammer of mine; 
another recalled the time when he and I worked on the 
round-up as partners, going with the Little Missouri 
" outfit " from the head of the Box Alder to the mouth 
of the Big Beaver, and then striking over to represent 
the Little Missouri brands on the Yellowstone round-up ; 
yet another recalled the time when I, as deputy sheriff 
of Billings County, had brought in three cattle-thieves 
named Red Finnegan, Dutch Chris, and the half-breed 
to his keeping, he being then sheriff in Dickinson, etc., 
etc., etc. 

At Medora, which we reached after dark, the entire 
population of the Bad Lands down to the smallest baby 
had gathered to meet me. This was formerly my home 
station. The older men and women I knew well; the 
younger ones had been wild tow-headed children when 
I lived and worked along the Little Missouri. I had 
spent nights in their ranches. I still remembered meals 
which the women had given me when I had come from 
some hard expedition, half famished and sharp-set as a 
wolf. I had killed buffalo and elk, deer and antelope 
with some of the men. With others I had worked on 
the trail, on the calf round-up, on the beef round-up. 
We had been together on occasions which we still re- 
membered when some bold rider met his death in trying 
to stop a stampede, in riding a mean horse, or in the 
quicksands of some swollen river which he sought to 
swim. They all felt I was their man, their old friend; 
and even if they had been hostile to me in the old days, 
when we were divided by the sinister bickering and 
jealousies and hatreds of all frontier communities, they 
now firmly believed they had always been my staunch 



472 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

friends and admirers. They had all gathered in the 
town hall, which was draped for a dance — young 
children, babies, everybody being present. I shook 
hands with them all, and almost each one had some 
memory of special association with me he or she wished 
to discuss. I only regretted that I could not spend three 
hours with them. 

Hell-Roaring Bill Jones was supposed to be at 
Gardiner, Wyoming, and Roosevelt, arriving there 
a few days later for a camping trip through the 
Yellowstone, asked eagerly for his old friend. Bill 
Jones was down in the world. He had had to give 
up his work as sheriff in Medora because he began 
to lose his nerve and would break down and weep 
like a child when he was called upon to make an 
arrest. He was driving a team in Gardiner outside 
the Park, and during the days preceding Roosevelt's 
arrival took so many drinks while he was telling of 
his intimacy with the man who had become Presi- 
dent of the United States, that he had to be carried 
into the sagebrush before Roosevelt actually arrived. 
Roosevelt left word to keep Bill Jones sober against 
his return, and when Roosevelt emerged from the 
Park, they met for the last time. It was a sad inter- 
view, for what was left of Hell-Roaring Bill Jones 
was only a sodden, evil-looking shell. 

" Bill Jones did not live long after that," said 
Howard Eaton. " The last I saw of him was two or 
three miles from Old Faithful. He said, * I'm going to 
the trees.' We went out to look for him, but couldn't 
find a trace. This was in March. He wandered way 




JOE AND SYLVANE FERRIS AXIJ MERRIFIELD 
Overlooking the site of the Maltese Cross Ranch (1919) 




Ti 



.'^.fgq f ? » a^ . 



HOTEL 





ROUGH RIDERS HOTEL, I919 
Known as the "Metropolitan" during the Eighties 



DEATH OF BILL JONES ' 473 

up one of those ravines and the supposition is that 
he froze to death. Some fellow found him up there 
in June, lying at the edge of a creek. The coyotes 
had carried off one of his arms, and they planted him 
right there. And that was the end of old Bill Jones." 

Years passed, and bitter days came to Roosevelt, 
but though other friends failed him, the men of the 
Bad Lands remained faithful. 

In 191 2, four of them were delegates to the Pro- 
gressive Convention — Sylvane Ferris from North 
Dakota, where he was president of a bank; Joe 
Ferris, George Myers, and Merrifield from Mon- 
tana. Even ''Dutch Wannigan," living as a her- 
mit in the wilderness forty miles west of Lake 
MacDonald, became an ardent Progressive. " I 
can't afford to go to Helena," he wrote in answer to 
an appeal from Merrifield to attend the State Pro- 
gressive Convention, '* but if you think there'll be a 
row, I'll try to make it." Packard and Dantz gave 
their pens to the cause. 

George Myers was the last of the " cowboy 
bunch " to see him. They met in Billings in October, 
191 8. The town was filled with the crowds who had 
come from near and far to see the man who, every- 
body said, was sure again to be President of the 
United States. 

"Have you got a room, George? " cried Roose- 
velt, as they met. 

Myers shook his head cheerfully. 

" Share mine with me," said Roosevelt, " and 
we'll talk about old times." 



474 ROOSEVELT IN THE BAD LANDS 

Three months later to a day, the man who had 
been Little Missouri's " four-eyed tenderfoot " was 
dead. 

The Bad Lands are still the Bad Lands, except 
that the unfenced prairies are fenced now and on 
each bit of parched bottom-land a " nester " has his 
cabin and is struggling, generally in vain, to dig 
a living out of the soil in a region which God never 
made for farming. The 'treacherous Little Missouri 
is treacherous still; here and there a burning mine 
still sends a tenuous wisp toward the blue sky; the 
buttes have lost none of their wild magnificence; 
and dawn and dusk, casting long shadows across the 
coulees, reveal the old heart-rending loveliness. 

Medora sleeps through the years and dreams of 
other days. Schuyler Lebo, who was shot by the 
Indians, delivers the mail; "Nitch" Kendley oper- 
ates the pump for the water- tank at the railroad 
station; a nonogenarian called " Frenchy," who 
hunted with Roosevelt and has lost his wits, plays 
cribbage all day long at the "Rough Riders Hotel." 
These three are all that remain of the gay aggrega- 
tion that made life a revel at the " depot " and at 
Bill Williams's saloon. And yet, even in its desola- 
tion, as the cook of the "Rough Riders Hotel" 
remarked, " There's something fascinating about the 
blinkety-blank place. I don't know why I stay here, 
but I do." 

The ranch-house of the Maltese Cross has been 
moved to Bismarck, where it stands, wind-beaten 



THE END 475 

and neglected, in the shadow of the capitol. The 
Elkhorn ranch-house is gone, used for lumber, but 
the great foundation stones that Bill Sewall and 
Will Dow laid under it remain, and the row of 
cottonwoods that shaded it still stand, without a 
gap. Near by are the ruins of the shack which 
Maunders claimed and Roosevelt held, in spite of 
threats. The river flows silently beneath a grassy 
bank. There is no lovelier spot in the Bad Lands. 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

ROOSEVELT'S FIRST CONTRACT WITH 
SYLVANE FERRIS AND A. W. MERRIFIELD 

(A COPY of this contract, in Mr. Roosevelt's handwriting, is in the 
ranch-ledger, kept, somewhat fitfully, by Mr. Roosevelt and his fore- 
men. This ledger, which contains also the minutes of the first meeting 
of the Little Missouri River Stockmen's Association, held in Medora 
on December 19, 1884, is now in the possession of Mr. Joseph A. 
Ferris, of Terry, Montana.) 

We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first 
part, and William Merrifield and Sylvane Ferris, parties of 
the second part, do agree and contract as follows: 

1. The party of the first part, Theodore Roosevelt, agrees 
and contracts with the parties of the second part, William 
Merrifield and Sylvanus Ferris, to put in on their ranch on 
the Little Missouri River, Dakota, four hundred head of cat- 
tle or thereabouts, the cost not to exceed twelve thousand 
dollars (^12,000) and the parties of the second part do agree 
to take charge of said cattle for the party of the first part; 
said cattle to be thus placed and taken charge of for the term 
of seven years. 

2. At the end of said seven years the equivalent in value of 
said four hundred head of cattle, as originally put in, is to be 
returned to the party of the first part; provided that the 
parties of the second part are to have the privilege of paying 
off at any time or times prior to the expiration of said seven 
years, in sums of not less than one thousand dollars at any 
one time, said claim of the party of the first part to the equiva- 
lent in value of the original herd of cattle. 

3. Any additional cattle put into the herd by said party of 
the first part are to be put in on the same terms as the original 
herd, and are to remain in the herd for as much of the seven 
years mentioned in this contract as is unexpired at the time 
they are put in. 



480 APPENDIX 

4. One half of the increase of value of said herd is to belong 
to the party of the first part and one-half to the parties of the 
second part. 

5. The parties of the second part are to have the power 
from time to time to make such sales as they in the exercise of 
their best judgment shall deem wisest, provided that no sale 
shall be made sufficient in amount to decrease the herd below 
its original value except by the consent of all parties in writ- 
ing. 

6. All monies obtained by such sales of cattle from the herd 
shall be divided equally between said party of the first part 
and said parties of the second part. 

7. During the continuance of said contract the parties of 
the second part agree not to take charge of nor have interest 
in any other stock than that of said party of the first part 
without his consent in writing. 

8. Said parties of the second part are to keep accurate and 
complete accounts in writing of the purchases and sales of 
stock and of the expenditures of all monies entrusted to their 
care, which accounts are to be submitted to said party of the 
first part whenever he may desire it. 

9. Any taxes upon said cattle are to be paid half by the 
party of the first part, half by the parties of the second part. 

10. Said cattle are to be branded with the maltese cross on 
the left hip and are to have the cut dewlap, these brands to be 
the property of the owner of the cattle; the vent mark to be 
the letter R under the maltese cross. 

Witness: Signed: 

Roger S, Kennedy Theodore Roosevelt 

M. Hanley {party of the first part) 

William Merrifield 
Sylvanus Ferris 

{parties of the second part) 
St. Paul, Minn., September 27th, 1883 



APPENDIX 481 

ROOSEVELT'S CONTRACT WITH WILLIAM W. 
SEWALL AND WILMOT S. DOW 

Little Missouri, Dakota 
June 20, 1885 
We the undersigned, Theodore Roosevelt, party of the first 
part, and William Sewall and Wilmot S. Dow, parties of the 
second part, do agree and contract as follows: 

(i) The party of the first part having put eleven hundred 
head of cattle, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars (^25,- 
000) on the Elkhorn Ranche, on the Little Missouri River, 
the parties of the second part do agree to take charge of said 
cattle for the space of three years, and at the end of this time 
agree to return to said party of the first part the equivalent in 
value of the original herd (twenty-five thousand dollars) ; any 
increase in value of the herd over said sum of twenty-five 
thousand dollars is to belong two-thirds to said party of the 
first part and one-third to said parties of the second part. 

(2) From time to time said parties of the second part shall 
in the exercise of their best judgment make sales of such cattle 
as are fit for market, the moneys obtained by said sales to be- 
long two-thirds to said party of the first part and one-third to 
said parties of the second part; but no sales of cattle shall be 
made sufficient in amount to reduce the herd below its original 
value save by the direction in writing of the party of the first 
part. 

(3) The parties of the second part are to keep accurate 
accounts of expenditures, losses, the calf crop, etc. ; said ac- 
counts to be always open to the inspection of the party of the 
first part. 

(4) The parties of the second part are to take good care of 
the cattle, and also of the ponies, buildings, etc., belonging to 
said party of the first part. 

Signed : 

Theodore Roosevelt 

(party of the first part) 
W. W. Sewall 
W. S. Dow 

(parties of the second part) 



482 APPENDIX 

ROOSEVELT'S DAKOTA INVESTMENT 

Mr. Roosevelt's accounts were kept by Mr. Frank C. 
Smith, confidential clerk in the office of his brother-in-law, 
Douglas Robinson. The ledgers reveal the following facts 
concerning his Dakota investments: 

Expended from September, 1884, to July, 1885 $82,500.00 
Returns from cattle sales, from September, 1885, to 

December, 1891 42,443.32 

Estimated value of cattle on the range, December, 

1891 16,500. 

Loss, not considering the interest on the investment 23,556.68 

On March 28, 1892, Roosevelt formed the Elkhorn Stock 
Company, incorporated under the laws of the State of New 
York, with Archibald D. Russell, R. H. M. Ferguson, and 
Douglas Robinson, and on December 5, 1892, transferred his 
cattle holdings to this Company at a valuation of ^16,500. 
Subsequently he invested a further sum of ^10,200. 

Investment, Elkhorn Stock Company $26,700.00 

Returns in capital and dividends from January, 

1893, to February, 1899 29,964.05 

Profit, not considering interest 3,264.05 

Loss on two ventures 20,292.63 

The computation of Roosevelt's loss in interest on his in- 
vestment of ^82,500.00 figured at 5 per cent from September 
1884, to February, 1899, the author gladly leaves to any class 
in arithmetic which may care to grapple with it. It approxi- 
mates ^50,000. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Axelby, Mr., 140, 141. 

Bad Lands, the, their appearance, 
5-7, 18, 23; the name, 6; the open- 
ing up of, 24, 25; the lawless ele- 
ment in, 54, 126-30, 136; horse 
and cattle thieves in, 139-42; 
winter in, 223-28, 236-38; spring 
in, 248-50; styles in, 321, 322; 
religion in, 325-28; law and order 
enter, 328-30; obtain organized 
government, 387; a hard winter 
in, 430-39; to-day, 474. 

Bad Lands Cowboy, The, 76, 77, 131- 
33. 329; burned out, 451. 

Bear-hunting, 185-88. 

"Ben Butler," 276, 289-91. 

Bennett, Hank, 252, 253. 

Benton, Thomas Hart, Roosevelt's 
Lifeoi, 371, 397-99- 

Bernstead, 375, 386 n. 

Berry-Boyce Cattle Co., 94. 

Big Horn Mountains, hunting in, 
168, 175-88. 

"Big Jack" and "Little Jack," 141, 
142. 

Bismarck, Dakota, 73. 

Bismarck Tribune, on Roosevelt, 

341- 
Black Jack, 135. 

Blaine, James G., nomination of, 88. 
Blizzard, a, 431-33- 
Boice, Henry, 25. 
Bolan, Pierce, 143, 197, 198. 
Bronco-busting, 225-27. 
Buffalo, hunting, 23, 24, 28-39, 44, 

45; extermination of, 29. 
Bullock, Seth, 459. 
Buttes, 6, 7, 13, 18, 202, 203. 

Carow, Edith, engagement to Roose- 
velt, 426; marriage of, 430. 

Cattle, trailing, 268-70, 

Cattle companies, 242. 

Cattle torture, 266, 267. 

Chicago Tribune, on Roosevelt, 350. 

Chimney Butte, trail to, 13; account 
of, 15. 



Coeur d'Alenes, 419. 

County organization, 55, 133-35, 
324,387. 

Cowboys, talk of, 100; their attitude 
toward Roosevelt, loi, 102; read- 
ing of, 228; a song of, 280; diver- 
sions of, 281; character of, 282; 
profanity of, 283; practical jokes 
of, 283, 284. 

Cummins, Mr., in, 323. 

Cummins, Mrs., and Mrs. Roberts, 
III, 112; her views, 259, 260; 
Roosevelt dines with, 293, 294; 
and Mrs. Ferris, 361, 362; the last 
of, 456- 

" Custer Trail," 13, 109, no. 

Dantz, Bill, 56 ; a singer of songs and 
a spinner of yarns, 281; made Su- 
perintendent of Education at Me- 
dora, 319; elected superintendent 
of schools, 390; the last of, 456, 

473- 
Day, Chancellor, 289 n. 

Deadwood stage-line, the Marquis's 
project of, 77, 78, 120-24, 170, 
209-14. 

"Devil, The," 271-75. 

Dickinson, first Fourth of July cele- 
bration of, 405-11; growth of, 
452. 

Dickinson Press, the, helps county 
organization,* 133, 134; fashion 
notes in, 321, 322. 

Dow, Wilmot, 88, 159, 163; Roose- 
velt's contract with, 156, 157, 
481; as a cow-hand, 189, 190, 206, 
225; and the vigilantes, 191, 192, 
195; good company, 217; his and- 
irons, 240; goes East to get mar- 
ried, 307; character of, 313, 314; 
on a thief hunt, 372-80; termi- 
nates engagement with Roosevelt, 
424-28; the last of, 457. 

Dow, Mrs., 313. 

Dutch Chris, 386 n. 

" Dutch Wannigan." See Reuter. 

Dynamite Jimmie. See McShane. 



486 



INDEX 



Eaton, Howard, 8, 13; and the Mar- 
quis de Mores, 60, 61 ; his appear- 
ance, no; calls on Roosevelt, 164, 
165; neighbor of Roosevelt, 315. 

Eaton Ranch, 456. 

Eatons, the, 25, 109, no, 260, 263, 
456. 

Elkhorn, ranch, 202, 240; life at, 
310-17; to-day, 475. 

Elkhorn Stock Co., 458. 

Ferguson, R. H. M., 458. 

Ferris, Joe, 10, 1 1 ; his career, 14-16; 
and the extra saddle horse, 17; 
brings down a buck, 24; on the 
buffalo hunt, 28-39, 44, 45; firm 
for law and order, 55, 56, 328; 
becomes storekeeper, 80, 81; 
prophesies Presidency for Roose- 
velt, 258; removes to Medora, 
319; banker of Bad Lands, 347; 
gets married, 360; in Medora in 
its desolation, 454; greeted by 
Roosevelt in 1900, 465; delegate 
to Progressive Convention, 473. 

Ferris, Mrs. Joe, 360-64. 

Ferris, Sylvane, 12; his career, 14- 
16; becomes partner of Roosevelt, 
42-44; for law and order, 55, 56; 
signs contract with Roosevelt, 
69, 70, 479, 480; and the Mar- 
quis's cattle, 84-86; confident of 
success in cattle raising, 255; rides 
Ben Butler, 290, 291; gets in- 
volved in the law, 300-04; in Me- 
dora in its desolation, 454; mar- 
ries, 455; delegate to Progressive 
Convention, 473. 

Finnegan, Redhead, 368-86, 457. 

Fisher, John C, and Roosevelt, 102- 
04; for county commissioner, 134; 
and horse thieves, 143; and Maun- 
ders, 199; and Medora's Great 
White Way, 319; at Medora's first 
election, 390, 391 ; the last of, 456. 

Fitzgerald, Mrs., 52. 

Fitz James, Count, 59. 

Flopping Bill, 195. 

Foley, 457. 

Frazier, George, 417. 

Frenchy, 474. 

Gentling the Devil, 271-75. 
Goat hunting, 419-24. 



Goodall, Johnny, 334, 390. 
Gorringe, H. H., 8, 9, 20, 23, 25. 

Hainsley, Jake, 85. 

Haupt brothers, the, 61, 67-69, 79, 

456. 
Herrig, Fred, 453. 
Hewitt, Abram S., 20. 
Hobson, H. H., 394. 
Hoffman, Baron von, 210, 450. 
Hoffman, Medora von, 59. 
Hogue, Jess, 7, 9. 51. 55, 420-23. 
Hollenberg, Carl, 258 n. 
Horse-thieves. See Thieves. 
Huidekoper, A, D., 25, no. 

Indians, shooting-match with, 183, 
184; trouble between whites and, 
351-54. 357, 358; Roosevelt's 
view of, 355; the psychology of, 
356. 

Jameson, Mr., 146. 

Jones, Hell-Roaring Bill, 1 13-16; 
Roosevelt makes friends with, 
116; of the gay life of Medora, 
128, 322; expresses his opinion on 
the scions of British aristocracy, 
261, 262; and "Deacon" Cum- 
mins, 323; and the Elk Hotel, 360; 
watches at the polling- places, 389, 
390; in later years, 454, 455; the 
last of, 472, 473, 

Jones, Three-Seven Bill, 246, 247, 
278. 

Kelly, Pat, 446. 

Kendley, Nitch, 264, 265, 474. 

La Pache, Louis, 195. 

Lang, Gregor, 11, 12; his cabin, 19; 
enjoys talks with Roosevelt, 19, 
24-28; how he established himself 
at Little Missouri, 20-22; ranch- 
ing offer made by Roosevelt to, 
41; makes prophecy concerning 
Roosevelt, 46; refuses to make 
friends with Marquis de Mores, 
62; the Marquis braves grudge 
against, 118; his ranch, 160; his 
love of argument, 263, 264; dog- 
matic in his theories, 264; rela- 
tions with Roosevelt and the Mar- 
quis, 338; in later years, 456. 



INDEX 



487 



Lang, Mrs. Gregor, 160, 161. 

Lang, Lincoln, 23, 27, 28, 41; bis- 
cuits made by, 34; his description 
of Bill Williams, 50; refuses Roose- 
velt's shot-gun, 96; his descrip- 
tion of Bill Jones, 115 «.; on grudge 
of Marquis for Gregor Lang, 118 
«.; on anecdote concerning Roose- 
velt and Mrs. Maddox, 150 w.; on 
the round-up, 277 M.;in later 
years, 456. 

Langs, the, on the "Three Seven" 
ranch, 93, 94, 261-63. 

Lebo, Norman, 175, 176, 180, 185. 

Lebo, Schuyler, 353, 474. 

Little Missouri, 7, 8; society in, 47- 
57; proceedings of Marquis de 
Mores at, 58-65; begins to flour- 
ish, 65, 66; continues to grow, 70- 
73; setback for, 77; the jail in, 135; 
to-day, 474. 

Little Missouri Land and Stock Co., 
the, 20, 61, 77. 

Little Missouri Stock Association. 
See Stockmen's Association. 

Luffsey, Riley, 63, 64, 119. 

Macdonald, 214 n. 

Mackenzie, Dan, 390. 

MacNab, 49. 

Maddox, Mrs., 95, 96, 150, 356. 

Maltese Cross, the, 15, 91, 148; 
outfit of, 92; first year of, 255; 
callers at, 264, 265; to-day, 474. 

Mandan Pioneer, the, 65, 154, 158. 

Marlow, Pete, 84, 85. 

Matthews, 84-86. 

Maunders, Archie, 53, 54. 

Maunders, Jake, 7, 9, 12, 49, 54- 
57; disliked Roosevelt, 58; and 
the Marquis de Mores, 62-65; 
cleans out Johnny Nelson, 80, 81; 
clings to the Marquis, 126; and 
horse and cattle thieves, 142; 
marked for hanging, 198; his dis- 
creetness, 199; visits Sewall in the 
dugout, 199-201; threatens to 
shoot Roosevelt, 207, 208; a bona- 
fide "bad man," 320; in Dickinson, 
457; greets Roosevelt, 466. 

McFay, 345. 

McGee, Chris, no, 165. 

McGeenev, Pete, 52. 

McGeeney, Mrs. Pete, 7, 52, 55, 56. 



McShane, Jimmie, 347. 

Medicine buttes, 202, 203. 

Medora, 8, 48; founded by Marquis 
de Mores, 61; blossoms forth, 77; 
life of, dominated by the Mar- 
quis, 1 16-18; gay life of, 127; 
notorious for its iniquity, 128-30; 
attempts at reform in, 131-35; in 
need of a jail, 135; mass meeting 
at, 136, 137; police force and fire 
department of, 137, 138; growth 
of, 170, 318-20; possessed deputy 
marshal, 221; the coming of law 
in, 323, 328; religion at, 325; first 
election at, 389-91; its glory de- 
parted, 451, 452, 454; visitedby 
Roosevelt as nominee for vice- 
presidency, 466; Roosevelt's last 
visit to, 469; to-day, 474. 

Merrifield, A. W., 12; his career, 
14-16; becomes partner of Roose- 
velt, 42-44; tries to establish law 
in Little Missouri, 56; signs con- 
tract with Roosevelt, 69, 70, 479, 
480; and the Marquis's cattle, 
84-86; tries out Roosevelt on the 
Sully Trail, 103, 104; on hunting 
trip, 175-88; confident of suc- 
cess in cattle raising, 255; carries 
news of Airs. Ferris's adherence 
to cowboj's, 361, 362; marries, 
447; delegate to Progressive Con- 
vention, 473. 

Mexico, flurry over, 413, 414. 

Miles City, 392-95. 

Mingusviile, 151-54, 242-47. 

Montana Live Stock Association, 
219. 

Montana Stockgrowers' Associa- 
tion, 392-95, 444-46. 

Mores, Marquis de, 25; arrival at 
Little Missouri, 58-60; his views, 
60, 61; and the Northern Pacific 
Refrigerator Car Co., 61, 79; 
founds Medora, 61; tries to win 
supporters, 62; and Maunders, 
62-65; and Riley Luffsey, 63, 64, 
119; in business, 67-69; extends 
his business, 70-72; and The 
Bad Lands Cowboy, 76; and the 
Deadwood stage, 77, 78, 120-24, 
170, 209-14; loss of his sheep, 
78; his cabbage project, 79, 
80; removes his cattle from the 



488 



INDEX 



Roosevelt bottom-land, 84-86; 
description of, 116; dominates 
life of Medora, 117; his grudge 
against Gregor Lang, 118; lacked 
judgment, 119; and Roosevelt, 
124; on the side of violence, 
125, 130; tries to join Stuart's 
vigilantes, 147; claims Roosevelt's 
range, 165, 191 ; member of stock- 
men's association, 234; his idea of 
the Western climate, 236; and his 
abattoir, 331-34; and kaoline, 
334; without friends in Medora, 
334; liked the Bad Lands, 335; his 
genealogy, 335, 336; relations with 
Roosevelt, 336-42, 345-49; in- 
dicted for murder, 342, 343; in 
jail, 344; his trial, 345, 346; goes 
to France, 359; new schemes of, 
447-50; leaves for India, 450; ar- 
ticle in Sioux Falls Press on, 450; 
later career and death of, 460-63. 

Mores, Marquise de, 462, 463. 

Morrill, Joe, 143; deputy marshal 
in Medora, 221, 222; stock in- 
spector, 324; sheriff, 390; vs. 
George Myers, 442-44; dismissed 
from inspectorship, 444, 445; 
later encounters with Roosevelt, 

457- 

Mountain sheep, huntmg, 228-32. 

Mugwumps, the, 88, 172, 208. 

Myers, George, cowpuncher, 93; 
his cookery, 106, 107, 232; in- 
vests in cattle, 255; accused of 
cattle stealing, 442-44; in later 
years, 467, 473. 

Nelson, Johnny, 7, 80, 81. 
Nesters, 194-96. 

Newburyport Herald, quoted, 384. 
Nolan, Mrs., 242, 245-47. 
Northern Pacific Refrigerator Car 

Co., 61, 79, 117. 
Nugent, Lord, 25. 

O' Donald, Frank, 63, 64, 66, 67. 
O'Hara, Johnny, 329. 
Olmstead, Mrs., 96 n. 
Osterhaut, 278, 324. 

Packard, A. T., arrival in Little 
Missouri, 73; and the cowboy, 
73-75; starts a newspaper, 76; 



and the Deadwood stage-line, 
123, 124, 170, 209-14; a civilizing 
influence, 130, 131; endeavors to 
introduce law and order in the 
Bad Lands, 131-35; issues call for 
mass meeting, 136; chief of police 
at Medora, 137-39; announces de- 
mise of horse-thieves, 193, 194; en- 
thusiastic over the Bad Lands, 
254; his account of Roosevelt and 
the Devil, 271-75; tries again for 
county organization, 324, 387; 
firm for order and decency, 328, 
329; realizes bigness of Roosevelt, 
411; excoriates Morrill, 443; 
supports Progressive cause, 473. 

Paddock, Jerry, 51, 52, 62. 

Paddock, Mrs., 52. 

Pender, Sir John, 2<>-22, 25, 455. 

Prairie fires, 351, 357, 358. 

Presidential Convention, the, 1884, 
88. 

Putnam, George Haven, 359. 

Ranges, cattle, 91, 92; claims on, 
219; need of law of, 220. 

Religion, in the Bad Lands, 325-28. 

Renter, John, 16; and Riley Luffsey, 
63, 64; returns to old occupa- 
tions, 169; one of Roosevelt's 
scow-hands, 338, 339; and the 
Marquis, 347; becomes Progres- 
sive, 473. 

Roberts, Lloyd, 456. 

Roberts, Margaret, ill, 112, 258- 
60, 456. 

Robins, Captain, 160, 189; his bout 
with Sewall, 161-64. 

Robinson, Douglas, 458. 

Roderick, Mrs., 52. 

Roosevelt, Anna, 104-06. 

Roosevelt, James, 40, 70. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, arrives in Lit- 
tle Missouri, 3-5; his reason for 
going to the Bad Lands, 8; starts 
on bufi^alo hunt, 12-14; gets an 
extra saddle horse, 16, 17; enjoys 
talks with Gregor Lang, 19, 24- 
28; hunting buffalo, 2S-39; de- 
sirous of buying a large farm, 39; 
interested in ranching projects, 
40, 41; secures two partners, 42, 
43; gives check for fourteen thou- 
sand dollars without receipt, 43; 



INDEX 



489 



kills his buffalo, 44-46; relished 
things blood-curdling, 47; signs 
contract with Sylvane and Mer- 
rifield, 69, 70, 479, 480; his cat- 
tle venture is disapproved of by 
family, 70; enters upon third 
term in New York Legislature, 
81, 82; death of mother and wife, 
82; of public activities of, 82, 83, 
87, 88; refuses to join Mug- 
wumps, 88, 172, 208; description 
of, 89; describes Presidential 
Convention, 90, 91; makes new 
contract, 94; gets buckskin suit, 
95, 96; shoots antelope, 97; enters 
into life of ranchman, 97, 98; on 
the round-up, 99, 275-307, 400-03; 
attitude of cowboys toward, loi, 
102; tried out on the Sully Trail, 
103, 104; his life as cowboy, 104, 
105; on solitary hunting trip, 105, 
106; tries cooking, 107; his reading 
and writing, 108, 109; a good 
mixer, 112; and Bill Jones, 115, 
116; and the Marquis, 124; tries 
to join Stuart's vigilantes, 146; 
determines upon spot for home- 
ranch, 149; and Mrs. Maddox, 
150; adventures at Mingusville, 
150-54, 244-47; editorial on, in 
the Mandan Pioneer, 154; on the 
Bad Lands, in the New York 
Tribune, 156; contract with Sewall 
and Dow, 156, 157, 481; inter- 
viewed by the Pioneer, 158, 159; 
on the ranch, 159-65; prepares 
for hunting trip, 168, 169, 173, 
174; demanded as first Congres- 
sional representative of Dakota, 
171; his political standing in 
the East, 172; always wanted to 
make the world better, 174, 219; 
his hunting trip in the Big Horn 
Mountains, 175-88; shoots a griz- 
zly, 185-88; returns to Elkhorn, 
202-05; threatened by Maun- 
ders, 207, 208; makes campaign 
speeches in New York, 208; night 
ride of, 216, 217; depression of, 
217-19; starts a reform, 219, 222; 
in winter on the ranch, 223-28; 
hunts mountain sheep, 228-32; 
forms stockmen's association, 
231-34. 



Returns to New York and 
works on "Hunting Trips of a 
Ranchman," 235, 239; his derby 
hat, 239; illness of, 240, 241 ; swims 
the Little Missouri, 249-52 ; and his 
ranching companions, 252, 253; a 
capable ranchman, 255; intolerant 
of dishonesty and ineffective- 
ness, 256, 257; how esteemed by 
the ranchmen, 257, 258; and the 
buttermilk, 259; and the neigh- 
bors, 260-64; tries cooking again, 
265; trailing cattle, 268-70; his 
horsemanship, 270, 271; gentles 
the Devil, 271-75; on the round- 
up, 275-307; breaks bronco, 287- 
89; tries Ben Butler, 289-91; 
breaks point of shoulder, 290, 291, 
293; attends dinner at Mrs. Cum- 
mins's, 293, 294; in the stampede, 
295-97; rescues Englishman with 
lasso, 297, 298; his enjoyment 
of the cowboy life, 305, 306; 
interviewed at St. Paul, 308, 309; 
his life at Elkhorn, 310-12, 
316, 317; adventure with Wads- 
worth's dog, 315, 316; rela- 
tions with the Marquis, 336-42, 
345-49; did not intend to enter 
Dakota politics, 350, 351; adven- 
ture with Indians, 353, 354; his 
attitude toward the Indians, 355, 
356; breaks his arm, 359; writes 
articles for press, 359; and Mrs. 
Ferris, 363, 364; anger at theft 
of boat, 365-71; undertakes Life 
of T. H. Benton, 371; on a thief 
hunt, 372-86; representative of 
stockmen's association, 392-95 1 
his cattle prospects, 395-97; con- 
tmues his Life of Benton, 397-99; 
his enjoyable summer of 1886, 
401, 402; his influence over the 
cowboys, 403; Fourth of July ora- 
tion, 407-11; restlessness of, 412; 
feelings at prospect of war with 
Mexico, 413-15; what hegot from 
the Western life, 416; his human 
sympathy, 41 7; holds up train, 41 8, 
419; goes goat hunting with John 
Willis, 419-24; terminates engage- 
ment with Sewall and Dow, 424- 
28. 

Becomes engaged to Edith Ca- 



490 



INDEX 



row, 426; nominated for Mayor 
of New York City, 429; marriage, 
430; his losses, 440, 441; assumes 
leadersiiip in stockmen's associa- 
tion, 446; later visits to Bad 
Lands, 453, 454, 458; books of, 
453,454; member of Civil Service 
Commission, 454; later encounters 
with Morrill, 457, 458; meets 
Seth Bullock, 459; member of 
Civil Service Commission, Police 
Commissioner, and Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Navy, 463; in 
Spanish War, 463, 464; Governor 
of New York, 464; goes to Da- 
kota as nominee for vice-presi- 
dency, 465-68; becomes Presi- 
dent, 468; entertains cowboys at 
White House, 468, 469; visits Me- 
dora for last time, 469-72; death, 
473; Dakota investment, 482. 

Rough Riders, the, 464. 

Round-up, the, 99, 220, 275-307, 

403-03- 
Rowe, 313, 314. 
Russell, Archibald D., 458. 

St. Paul Pioneer Press, its version of 
the Roosevelt-Mores bargain, 341. 

Sewall, Bill, 87; Roosevelt's con- 
tract with, 156, 157, 481; his 
opinion of the West as a cattle- 
raising country, 159, 160, 206, 
238, 240, 254, 306, 307,. 396; his 
bout with Captain Robins, 162- 
64; his description of the Bad 
Lands, 167, 168, 190; begs off on 
hunting trip, 175; as a cow- 
hand, 189, 190, 206, 225; and the 
vigilantes, 191, 192, 195; visited 
by Maunders in the dugout, 199- 
201; had good knowledge of the 
ways of cattle, 206, 207; consoles 
Roosevelt, 217-19; refuses to 
ride broncos, 225-27; on the 
cold of the Bad Lands, 236, 238; 
describes "cattle torture," 266, 
267; superintends the house at 
Elkhorn, 312; level-headed, 313; 
helps clean up country of thieves, 
324; lectures Roosevelt, 359; on 
a thief hunt, 372-80; terminates 
engagement with Roosevelt, 424- 
28; in later years, 457. 



Sewall, Mrs., 310-13. 

Simpson, John, 25, 385. 

Sioux Falls Press, on Roosevelt, 

429. 
Smith, "Vic," 9 n, 
Snyder, Jack, 436. 
Stage-line, the Deadwood, 77, 78, 

120-24, 170, 209-14, 334. 
Stampede, 295-97. 
Starr, Western, 303, 304, 385. 
Stickney, Dr., 291-93, 325, 382, 

383. 

Stockmen's association, Roosevelt 
makes move to form, 222, 223; 
formation of, 232-34; activity of, 
323, 324; its action on prairie fires, 
358; Roosevelt representative of, 
390. 

Stranglers, the, 192-94. 

Stuart, Granville, 144-46; his vigi- 
lantes, 146, 147, 157-59, 192-94. 

Styles in the Bad Lands, 321, 322. 

Sully Trail, the, 102-04. 

"Tepee Bottom," iii. 

Thieves, horse and cattle, 139-47; 

rounding up of, 157-59, 192-94. 
"Three Seven," the, 94. 
"Tolu Tonic," 22. 
Trimble, Richard, 40. 
Truscott, J. L., 390. 

Valentine scrip, 61. 

Vallombrosa, Antoine de. See 

Mores. 
Van Brunt, no. 
Van Driesche, 334, 390. 
Van Zander, 128, 322, 363, 457. 
"V-Eye," no. 
Vigilantes, Stuart's, 146, 147, 157- 

59, 192-94; other, 192, 194-96. 
Vine, Captain, 10, 21. 
Vine, Darius, 21, 53, 54. 
Vine, Frank, 10, 22-24, 5^, 61; his 

joke on Packard, 73-75. 
Vines, the, 456. 

Wadsworth dog, the, 315, 316. 
Wadsworth family, 15, 25. 
Walker, J. B., 360. 
Wannigan. See Renter. 
Watterson, Walter, 275. 
Wharfenberger, 375. 
Wibaux, Pierre, 242. 



INDEX 



491 



Williams, Bill, 7, 9; description of, 
50, 51 ; thief, 54, 81 ; starts freight, 
line, 120; and stage-line, 122; in 
the gay life of Medora, 128; his 
saloon, 319, 320; a bona-fide "bad 
man," 320; and the preacher. 



325 n.; the last of his saloon, 

454. 
Willis, John, 419-24. 454. 469- 
Wister, Owen, The Virginian, 214 n. 

Young, Farmer, 315. 



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